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Medicine Science

Heavily Processed Food Like Ready Meals and Ice Cream Linked To Early Death (theguardian.com) 272

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: People who eat large amounts of heavily processed foods, from breakfast cereals and ready meals to muffins and ice-cream, have a greater risk of heart attack, stroke and early death, according to two major studies. In the French NutriSante study, researchers at the University of Paris gathered details on the diets and health of more than 105,000 people. Over five years of follow-up, those who consumed the most "ultra-processed" food were most at risk of stroke, heart attack and other cardiovascular problems. When the amount of ultra-processed food in the diet rose 10 percentage points, for example from 10% to 20%, the risk of the diseases rose 12%.

The study, published in the British Medical Journal, does not prove that ultra-processed foods cause disease. Nor does the effect appear particularly large, even in the most enthusiastic junk food consumers. The results suggest that 277 cases of cardiovascular disease would arise each year in 100,000 heavy consumers of ultra-processed foods, versus 242 cases in the same number of low consumers. For the second study, also in the BMJ, a team at the University of Navarra in Pamplona monitored the eating habits and health of nearly 20,000 Spanish graduates from 1999 to 2014. Over the course of the study, 335 participants died. Once factors such as age, sex, body mass index and whether or not people smoked were taken into account, the trend was clear. The top quarter consumers of ultra-processed foods -- who had more than four servings a day -- were 62% more likely to have died than those in the bottom quarter, who ate less than two portions a day. For each additional serving, the risk of death rose 18%.

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Heavily Processed Food Like Ready Meals and Ice Cream Linked To Early Death

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  • Misleading Title (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ranton ( 36917 ) on Thursday May 30, 2019 @10:34PM (#58683656)

    So the research shows 1 out of nearly 3000 people who eat high levels of processed food have cardiovascular disease which can be potentially traced to their eating habits. Seems like a very weak link to me.

    • Re:Misleading Title (Score:4, Interesting)

      by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Thursday May 30, 2019 @10:52PM (#58683716) Journal
      They didn't control for amount of vegetables eaten (among other things). It could be that it isn't the processed food that is bad, but rather not eating the vegetables it displaces.
      • Re:Misleading Title (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Falconnan ( 4073277 ) on Thursday May 30, 2019 @11:30PM (#58683848)
        I see your point, but in all likelihood the positive correlation is going to hold. And it won't be about ingredients, either. It'll likely be about the processing. Mostly the processing makes the food easier to consume and likely to absorb with less digestion. Meaning the digestive system isn't using that much energy to do its job. In essence, it means less metabolic activity to bring in nutrients. In many ways, this means less "exercise" by proxy.In short, vegetables not being involved does make sense as an aspect as the body has to work harder to gain nutrients from them.
        • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 30, 2019 @11:50PM (#58683912)

          Or the people eating processing food have another million factors from shiftwork to food insecurity confounding this shit study that had a predetermined outcome

          • by Joce640k ( 829181 ) on Friday May 31, 2019 @01:43AM (#58684154) Homepage

            Or the people eating processing food have another million factors from shiftwork to food insecurity confounding this shit study that had a predetermined outcome

            Came here to say this.

            Correlation != causation.

            Habitual junk food eaters probably do other things wrong, too, like not walking around much.

            • Re: Misleading Title (Score:5, Informative)

              by mamba-mamba ( 445365 ) on Friday May 31, 2019 @02:15AM (#58684204)

              It is not necessarily a shit study. But the point of prospective studies is to identify correlations which can then be further investigated in other types of studies (such as blind or double blind studies where randomized groups are used).

              • by orlanz ( 882574 ) on Friday May 31, 2019 @06:14AM (#58684756)

                I think these kinds of "studies" should end with a section called "layman terms". Because the news people totally mess up the message. The article clearly doesn't match the intent of the study.

                In layman terms the study says: "We should do more in-depth testing on processed food and it's long term health effects."

                And even that implies unnecessary negativity. Saying there is a probable link and all that just gets across to the general public poorly. There is probably more additional money spent on "non-processed diets" marketing because of the way the article is written than there is spent actually studying the issue.

                • by mjwx ( 966435 )

                  I think these kinds of "studies" should end with a section called "layman terms". Because the news people totally mess up the message. The article clearly doesn't match the intent of the study.

                  In layman terms the study says: "We should do more in-depth testing on processed food and it's long term health effects."

                  And even that implies unnecessary negativity. Saying there is a probable link and all that just gets across to the general public poorly. There is probably more additional money spent on "non-processed diets" marketing because of the way the article is written than there is spent actually studying the issue.

                  The first thing they need to do is clearly define what is "ultra-processed food" as "processed food" can legally refer to any food that has been through a manufacturing process, this involves mere packaging.

                  I think once we do that we're going to find that most, if not all correspond to foods that are high in salt, sugar and saturated fats... which is pretty much known to be unhealthy already.

              • by c6gunner ( 950153 ) on Friday May 31, 2019 @06:21AM (#58684778) Homepage

                You can't really do any useful studies with such a small effect size regardless of blinding. What are you gonna do? Force one group to eat more junk food than the other for the next 20 years?

                The other guy was right when he pointed out that junk food just likely correlates for all kinds of other life choices which have a cumulative effect. The study accounted for the most obvious ones like smoking, but that still leaves dozens more. Good luck controlling for every possible contributing factor.

              • by Roger W Moore ( 538166 ) on Friday May 31, 2019 @08:25AM (#58685242) Journal

                It is not necessarily a shit study.

                I guess at that point the foods have been too heavily processed.

            • Correlation != causation.

              No it's not, but as in the parents case it tells us something which can be used to directly identify impacted groups of people.

            • by fazig ( 2909523 )
              It's still rather plausible than implausible in this case.

              Highly processed foods usually have high caloric values and come in small sizes. And as some post above was specified their nutrients (calories) included can be absorbed easily and quickly.
              As a result it's quite plausible that these high caloric density foods do not provide the same satiation than foods with lower caloric density.
              The often high sugar contents that are quickly absorbed cause blood sugar to spike and then drop rapidly again (assumin
              • Not to mention, the high amounts of processing, kill/remove much of the nutritional value of this food....you lose a lot of the vitamins, proteins, etc these foods have in their more natural states.

                So, you end up eating a lot of calories, but getting little nutritional value.

                • by fazig ( 2909523 )
                  That's why some people take supplemental multi-vitamins, which are superfluous if you eat a varied diet. Except perhaps if you suffer from some other disorder. I knew someone who (female) who suffered from anaemia and had to take additional iron supplements, despite eating meat regularly.

                  I think another huge issue with processed food is the removal of fibre content.
                  According to my understanding fibre is the main difference between eating an apple (peeled) for example and drinking some apple juice of the
            • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

              There is a difference between junk food and heavily processed food. The junk food label tends to indicate high calories with low nutrition, where as highly processed would tend to be moderate calories and moderate nutrition. The study does not clarify how much food was eaten, what volumes. With processed foods, where you just reheat, the opportunity to overeat is right there, three minutes in a microwave. Unprocessed food means cooking, some things take quite some time and effort to cook, hence less likely

          • by sycodon ( 149926 )

            I have Food Insecurity,

            That's why I eat myself to death with ice cream, muffins, and sugary cereal.

        • by mamba-mamba ( 445365 ) on Friday May 31, 2019 @02:13AM (#58684196)

          I see your point, but in all likelihood the positive correlation is going to hold.

          There is zero basis for your optimism. Possible risk factors identified in prospective studies frequently don't pan out. I mean, I am not saying vegetables have anything to do with it. I am just saying that it is very possible that the correlation is due to some other uncontrolled variable, and not due to the processed foods themselves at all. To express otherwise is to venture outside of science.

          • >"There is zero basis for your optimism. Possible risk factors identified in prospective studies frequently don't pan out."

            +1

            And those people eating such food might have higher stress jobs, or exercise less, or work more, or get less sunlight, or drink more soda, or consume more caffeine, or use more or less supplements, or sleep worse, or etc. There are a ZILLION other things they cannot account for in such studies. Which is why it is no conclusion at all.

            Such studies are useful for selecting things t

        • by ahodgson ( 74077 )

          Processed food removes the fiber and adds sugar. This is a no-brainer causation.

      • It could be the displaced vegetables or it could be that people who eat a lot of processed foods are also more likely to have one or more other unhealthy habits. This is kindof like concluding that people who never have the oil changed in their car are also more likely to never have their brakes serviced.

        • Once you wreck the calipers and wear through the disk, of which the outer breaks free as a ring, and the brakes don't work anymore, you will get your brakes replaced.

          Once the motor siezes you will get a new one, which they will give you new oil with.

      • Re:Misleading Title (Score:4, Interesting)

        by ilguido ( 1704434 ) on Friday May 31, 2019 @05:06AM (#58684592)

        It could be that it isn't the processed food that is bad, but rather not eating the vegetables it displaces.

        That is actually one explanation put forward. The BBC article [bbc.com] about the matter is quite informative, it lists a number of possible reasons for this phenomenon:

        - lack of nutrients and fibre
        - while the additives in food have been safety tested, it may be unhealthy to consume lots of additives from different foods
        - people eat more (too much calories...) because they're easy to eat (no time for cooking etc.)
        - ultra-processed foods push healthier foods such as fruit and vegetables out of diets

        Moreover it warns that the category ultra-processed food is too broad and not clearly defined to be actually useful.

        • Moreover it warns that the category ultra-processed food is too broad and not clearly defined to be actually useful.

          If they're using the United Nations Guidelines [openfoodfacts.org] then it's definitely too broad to be useful. It lists, for instance, sausages and baby formula as "Ultra-processed" foods. Anything using a preservative, any preservative, is lumped in as ultra-processed.

          Generally any foods not eaten directly pulled up from the field raw on the farm is rated as harmful in some way.

          • Preservatives wouldn't even apply if the definition (for the purpose of this article) is something like "takes a lot less energy to digest per unit of energy.

            No preservatives in my processed white bread. Rats it's moldy already.

            • by Mashiki ( 184564 )

              No preservatives in my processed white bread. Rats it's moldy already.

              On average your processed white bread with no preservatives should be good for about a week. If it's growing spores, you have a mold problem in your house. Or you simply live in a pigsty and never wipe dirty surfaces clean with soap and water. Funny enough, if you bake your own bread without preservatives it's generally good for about 13-15 days.

              The composition isn't really all that different, the yeast however is very different.

        • Moreover it warns that the category ultra-processed food is too broad and not clearly defined to be actually useful.

          This.

          I went looking for references to "ultra-processed food". What I got was the phrase "significantly changed from its original state".

          Note that "significantly changed" can include more salt, more sugar, more fat. It can also include preservatives and artificial colors.

          And, finally, it can include "additives"...yep, "ultra-processed food" can include "additives"....

          Note that "more salt"

          • And canned food (which has been a staple of most diets since canning was invented) is likewise something that's been around a while.

            So, what's NEW here? And if it's new, why do the food-nazis feel the need to drag in pretty much all food sold before 1940?

            Well, I think you can make a distinction between methods of preserving foods and "processed" foods in the more modern sense.

            I'd say canned green beans, is much more natural than say a box of Cheerios, that have different grains brought in, ground, bleac

          • Contains at least two things that:
            1) your grandmother wouldn't even think about using
            or
            2) you can't recognize with the sensory equipment nature issued you with

      • by atrex ( 4811433 )
        There's probably a lot of other socio-economic factors that could be influences as well. It may be that the higher consumers of heavily processed ready made foods are also more stressed/depressed about their life, don't exercise as much, or any number of other factors.
    • by PolygamousRanchKid ( 1290638 ) on Thursday May 30, 2019 @11:10PM (#58683776)

      Life, in general, is a very unhealthy activity, and will eventually lead to death.

      I can't seem to remember anyone surviving it at all.

      OK, shut up Mary, mother of Jesus, . . . you are one of the 1%ers . . .

    • by quenda ( 644621 )

      Titles on this sort of thing are always misleading.
      But BIG congratulations for /. for the second paragraph in the summary, which says its all bullshit.
      A small correlation, and no evidence of causality.

      When life is good, I like to cook simple food with quality ingredients.
      When times are bad, and I'm stressed, I'm more likely to eat processed junk food. A correlation is no shock.

    • "So the research shows 1 out of nearly 3000 people who eat high levels of processed food have cardiovascular disease which can be potentially traced to their eating habits. Seems like a very weak link to me."

      The 2999 will get the disease after the study has ended.

  • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Most of such foods has more salt than "natural" foods.

      Assuming that you don't add salt to your "natural" foods ...

    • Most of such foods has more salt than "natural" foods.

      Aside from the central Asian "stan" countries the highest consumption of salt is in the Japanese diet, not exactly people well known for cardiovascular disease. The whole "salt = unhealthy" thing has been debunked a long time ago. To be clear it's not good for you, but certainly the 80s-90s era thought that salt is the evil killing all of us westerners is well and truly incorrect.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Who would have thunk it? Processed foods filled with chemicals dubiously approved for consumption would kill someone, much earlier than foods without....

    Say it ain't so...!

  • IceCream???? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wolfheart111 ( 2496796 ) on Thursday May 30, 2019 @10:50PM (#58683706)
    Noooo, how can this be? :(
    • that part is nonsense, they had not reason to tack "ice cream" onto the processed crap known to cause disease.

    • by dfm3 ( 830843 )
      Not all ice cream is created equal. Take a look at the ingredients list for a range of brands, from your bottom of the barrel economy brand to the minimally processed expensive stuff... all you need to make ice cream is cream/milk, sugar, and maybe pureed fruit, but the cheap stuff will have a long list of ingredients such as palm oil, gelatin, glycerin, emulsifiers, preservatives, artificial colors, and more.

      Now, that's to say nothing about the nutritional content of ice cream; any brand is likely to be h
  • by Anonymous Coward

    That's 1/3000 as mentioned in previous comments, which out of the 100,000 people would be around 33 people out of that whole sample. Hard to say if it's causation or correlation. It could be as simple as that those who eat high amounts of processed foods also make other bad food and health choices, which would make sense. If it caused it, I would expect a much higher number. It reminds me of aspartame with obesity. No study has shown a causal link. Those who eat diet food may just be eating other foods whic

  • by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Thursday May 30, 2019 @10:54PM (#58683726) Journal
    The difference in nutritional content between a ready meal and ice cream is so drastically different. I wouldn't think you could determine anything useful by putting them in the same category.
  • Sugar, dextrose, corn syrup, starchy grains, etc. This is what Atkins/Keto/etc. have been saying for years.

    There is probably a great deal of variation based on genetics, but high carb/low fat diet seems to be worse for more people than a high fat/low carb diet.

    • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Thursday May 30, 2019 @11:41PM (#58683882)
      your body will turn protein into carbs [popsci.com]. The reason Keto diets work is they force you to cut out junk food. Asian diets include more carbs than anything and are healthier.

      It's about portions more than anything else. The reason processed foods are bad is they tend to be calorically dense with really crap nutrition. That's because most processed foods are made from pretty low quality ingredients because you can buy cheap, borderline inedible foods, put a bunch of chemicals over them and *blamo*, you've got something palatable.
      • your body will turn protein into carbs [popsci.com]. The reason Keto diets work is they force you to cut out junk food. Asian diets include more carbs than anything and are healthier.

        Yeah, and most fad diets tend to work better for early adopters. Like the high protein "Atkins" craze; back before they had a bunch of Atkins-centric foods and snacks in grocery stores people lost a lot of weight on Atkins. As soon as manufacturers started putting Atkins-friendly products on the shelf there was more Atkins dieters could eat and so they ate more and lost less weight.

        Same with Keto diet. Early adopters of keto diet lost more than the current gen now that producers are making keto-friendly

    • It would be more interesting to find out exactly what part of the food processing is bad. Because pasteurized milk, frozen vegetables, fresh salad mix, and roasted nuts are all "processed" foods. Are these bad for us? I suspect it has more to do with the additives like the ones you mentioned, and fat, preservatives, salt, etc.
      • by jabuzz ( 182671 )

        Actually if you read the article carefully problem is that people who eat what is classified as "ultra processed food" in the article are more likely to be overweight, and it is being overweight that is the problem. They hypothesis that this is because the "ultra processed" foods are calorie dense so overeating is easier.

        Apparently freezing some cream to make ice cream makes it "ultra processed". Also on the list of "ultra processed" food is home made bread, really WTF. The sausages that I get at my local b

    • This is what Atkins/Keto/etc. have been saying for years.

      Sugar, dextrose, and corn syrup is what *everyone* who eats healthy and has a healthy lifestyle including much of the medical profession have been saying for years.

      There's no need to bring your trendy diet into it. We've been saying these things since before "keto" was a thing.

  • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Thursday May 30, 2019 @10:58PM (#58683742)
    also usually have high stress lives where they have little time to cook. 2-3 jobs while studying up for their next job when the economy collapses and they have to start all over again. Add a few kids into the mix because your state makes it hard to get birth control and that doesn't leave a lot of time to shop/cook/clean.

    If I want a pizza I can pull one out of the freezer and toss it in the over for 20 minutes + 10 to pre-heat the oven. If I want to make my own I've got to set aside an hour to make dough (longer if I have to kneed it myself), then shred cheese (pre-shreded has some odd ball chemicals), cut vegetables and pre-cook meats (no cheating and just using peperoni) plus I've got to buy everything. Vegetables don't keep forever except for maybe olives, and unless I want to pay through the nose for those I'm slicing them myself.
  • 277 vs 244 case. sqrt(250) is15. so not a lot of sigmas here. They don't seem to claim to have corrected for a huge range of external factors, in particular wealth levels which are often strongly correlate with health. I would also expect eating of processed foods to inversely correlate with wealth - but don't know for sure.

    Then of course there is likely a negative correlation between eating ultra processed foods and people who engage in health positive activities like exercise. What about processed

    • Is there really anything to see here?

      Yeah, actually. Despite the headline, the results show that eating processed foods has a small effect, or none. I expected the effect to be much larger.

  • by amanaplanacanalpanam ( 685672 ) on Thursday May 30, 2019 @11:08PM (#58683772)
    Link Between Early Death and Heavily Processed Food Like Ready Meals and Ice Cream Weaker Than Expected
  • Total BS (Score:5, Funny)

    by 110010001000 ( 697113 ) on Thursday May 30, 2019 @11:12PM (#58683790) Homepage Journal

    This is BS. I eat nothing but processed food and I am just fi

  • by Camel Pilot ( 78781 ) on Thursday May 30, 2019 @11:24PM (#58683828) Homepage Journal

    Generally speaking, Ice Cream is cream, eggs, and sugar. Not heavily processed.

    • Buy one at the local supermarket and take a look at the ingredient list. Does it have 3 items or 30?
      • by jma05 ( 897351 )

        3 item ice cream is often no healthier than the 30 item one.
        Most of the ill health effects are likely due to sugar, not the preservatives or artificial flavors.

    • by Snufu ( 1049644 )

      Cream and eggs are heavily processed foods, heavily processed by nature to have unusually high caloric density for specialized one-off purposes: raising young. Adults are not designed to consume cream and eggs in regular quantities. Also, refined sugar is heavily processed.

      By 'heavily processed' the correlation implies the amount of work (calories) your body has to expend to extract nutrition and net calories from the food per unit volume (satiety in the belly.) Think raw wheat, raw fruits and raw vegetable

    • Yeah and generally speaking meat is a slab of cow. That doesn't mean I can't go to the super market and get it in a can loaded with preservatives, high in fat content, with added sugar for flavour, and ground together with any other animal bit that happend upon the meat grinder on that particular day.

      Generally speaking, unless you're making it yourself, ice cream does not just contain the ingredients you mentioned.

      Incidentally the vanilla ice cream in my fridge has about 25 ingredients listed, that's 21 mor

      • by jabuzz ( 182671 )

        Depends on the ice cream you buy. Buy a quality make and yes it contains a handful of ingredients. Specifically the make I buy has nine ingredients listed. Basically the only "additives" are some guar gum and sodium alginate (both natural products) that is used for inhibiting ice crystal growth and thickening. The rest is milk (whole milk and milk solids), cream, egg, sugar, glycerine and some vanilla flavouring.

        Breakfast cereals where on the list of "ultra processed" foods. This morning I had some shredded

    • by jma05 ( 897351 )

      Sugar counts as heavily processed food.

      We used to make our own ice cream - mostly just ripe bananas and peanuts in a blender, with some Stevia or other fruit added if not sweet enough.

    • Glad to see I was not the only one annoyed by their inclusion of Ice Cream as a heavily processed food.
      Yeah, your Ben and Jerries with an expiry date of never might not be the same as home made ice cream, but that say what you mean and not just "ice cream".
    • Generally speaking, Ice Cream is cream, eggs, and sugar. Not heavily processed.

      But ... but ... it must be! Unless you get it for $20/tub at Whole Foods!

  • by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Thursday May 30, 2019 @11:26PM (#58683838)

    Seriously. It is not. No, really not.

    In this case, it is just a lot more likely that people that care about their health also eat better.

  • by larryjoe ( 135075 ) on Friday May 31, 2019 @12:49AM (#58684050)

    Ultra-processed is not a generally recognizable term. This particular study is based on the NOVA classification of food and defines ultra-processed foods and drinks as "Formulations of several ingredients which, besides salt, sugar, oils, and fats, include food substances not used in culinary preparations, in particular, flavours, colours, sweeteners, emulsifiers and other additives used to imitate sensorial qualities of unprocessed or minimally processed foods and their culinary preparations or to disguise undesirable qualities of the final product." This definition seems to focus on ingredients rather than the processing of ingredients and therefore the used of the term "processed" is misleading.

    What would have been much more convincing would have been a study that did appropriate factor analysis to show that the mortality rates were correlated with eating ultra-processed food when traditionally accepted factors for poor nutrition are factored out.

  • I'll have to find time to sit down and read this study, but the obvious question here, is what about other health factors than diet for people in this study? Did the people who ate lots of 'highly processed' foods also not get much or any exercise? Did they smoke? Did they have other health problems? Family history of heart disease, etc? Is it that the people who ate non-highly-processed foods also took better care of themselves overall? Got exercise? Enough sleep? Low-stress lifestyle? Who knows. Have to r
  • by evanh ( 627108 ) on Friday May 31, 2019 @01:28AM (#58684122)

    QUOTE: "Once factors such as age, sex, body mass index and whether or not people smoked were taken into account ..."

    Stress is the #1 cause of heart disease. If they're not accounting for differences in individual long term stress then the study is entirely worthless.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by dohzer ( 867770 )

    Wait... Why does this matter now that we've all decided that ready meals are fucking disgusting and have stopped eating them?

  • by Zorpheus ( 857617 ) on Friday May 31, 2019 @03:45AM (#58684402)
    This study is extremely unspecific on the cause of the problem.
    Trans fats have been identified as unhealthy. They form when vegetable fat is hardened. I think all the listed "highly processed" foods contain these.
  • The problem with all this 'health' thinking is that all the healthy solutions require my time now. I may end up terribly unhealthy in my old age, but I may not. On the other hand, I know much of my time will be wasted shopping and cooking if I want to do this. My time is just to valuable now to occupy 50% of the free time that I have with shopping and cooking. They say there are three factors in life: great wealth / health / friends. You can flounder in life and do very little at all three, or you can
  • Not to insult the study however. These studies are done for a reason; it's just that the results were pretty mundane.

    People who eat too much, or conversely don't eat enough healthy stuff, die early. Wow. I'm shocked. I mean technically it's a good result since it means the processed stuff isn't basically outright poison.

  • I eat loads of the stuff and am just fine. In fact, I'm eating a neat pizza once again right now and it's soipmmp iuoiu ..... NO CARRIER

  • by eepok ( 545733 ) on Friday May 31, 2019 @10:42AM (#58685982) Homepage

    I read somewhere that males that regularly consumed MREs regularly between the ages of 18 and 25 are significantly more likely to commit suicide than the rest of the population at the same age. It must be something in the MREs.

    Or... some other factor. Hmm...

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