While it’s common knowledge that frozen foods and packaged snacks aren’t the best for our waistlines, many of us continue to consume them due to their convenience.
However, recent research indicates that these foods could not only lead to weight gain and other health problems, but they might also hasten our ageing process.
Scientists have discovered that individuals who consume more ultra-processed foods (UPFs) – such as packaged snacks, fizzy drinks, reconstituted meat products, and instant noodles – exhibit signs of accelerated biological ageing compared to those who eat fewer of these heavily processed food items.
This finding comes from a team at the IRCCS Neuromed Mediterranean Neurological Institute in Italy, who analysed data from over 2,000 adults.
UPFs are typically loaded with additives, artificial colours, sweeteners, and preservatives that you wouldn’t usually find in your home kitchen. Shockingly, statistics from 2023 reveal that approximately 57 percent of the food consumed in the UK is classified as ultra-processed, reports Surrey Live.
The study, published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, revealed that participants whose diets contained the highest proportion of UPFs (more than 14 percent of total food consumed by weight) exhibited an acceleration in biological ageing of about four months compared to those who ate the least amount of UPFs. While this may not seem significant, it can have a considerable cumulative effect over years or even decades.
Research has unveiled that within its participants, processed meat goods took up the biggest slice of the ultra-processed food (UPF) pie with a whopping 17.6 percent, closely tailed by cakes and pastries at 14.2 percent and fruit drinks not too far behind with 10.9 percent. Study Finds points out that those indulging more in UPFs were on the younger side, had more education under their belt, and were largely city dwellers.
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Although these individuals were found to be less physically active and had lower instances of chronic diseases which researchers reckon could be down to youth the impact of UPFs is raising eyebrows.
The study’s co-author Marialaura Bonaccio weighed in with some words of caution: “The mechanisms through which ultra-processed foods can be harmful to human health are not yet entirely clear. Besides being nutritionally inadequate, being rich in sugars, salt and saturated or trans fats, these foods undergo intense industrial processing that actually alters their food matrix, with the consequent loss of nutrients and fibre.”
She continued: “This can have important consequences for a series of physiological functions, including glucose metabolism, and the composition and functionality of the gut microbiota. Also, these products are often wrapped in plastic packaging, thus becoming vehicles of substances toxic to the body.”
Previous studies have suggested that ultra-processed foods (UPFs) could be linked to health problems such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. However, experts say it’s not about completely cutting out UPFs from your diet, but rather reducing consumption and opting for less processed alternatives when you can.
Licia Iacoviello, director of the Research Unit of Epidemiology and Prevention at the IRCCS Neuromed, weighed in on the study: “This study prompts us once again to re evaluate the current dietary recommendations that should also include warnings on limiting the intake of ultra-processed food in our daily diet,” She further noted: “Actually, some nutrient-dense packaged foods can be classified as ultra-processed, and this suggests the need of guiding people towards dietary choices that address also the degree of food processing.”
The research roped in 22,495 adults from the Molise region in Italy between 2005 and 2010. These participants filled out comprehensive food frequency questionnaires, detailing their eating habits over the past year across 188 food items.
Researchers used the NOVA classification system to sort foods based on their level of processing, with a particular focus on UPFs. They then employed a state-of-the-art artificial intelligence method to analyse 36 different blood biomarkers to compute what they dubbed a “biological age” score.
This score was subsequently compared against the actual ages of the participants.