Published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, the study investigated the relationship between UPF consumption and all-cause mortality in eight different countries including Colombia, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Australia, Canada, the UK and the US.
The researchers discovered a linear dose–response association, with a 10% increase in UPF contribution to total energy intake corresponding with a 2.7% rise in the risk of all-cause mortality.
The authors also estimated the proportion of premature deaths attributable to UPF consumption in the eight selected countries. This ranged from 4% in Colombia, where UPF consumption is relatively low, to 14% in the UK and US where consumption of UPFs is much higher.
Despite these findings, the study cannot prove that UPF consumption has resulted in premature deaths because of external factors such as exercise levels, lifestyle and wealth, in addition to a person’s wider diet, that impact health.
The most commonly used definition of UPFs is taken from the NOVA classification system, which places food products in food different categories: unprocessed and minimally processed foods, processed culinary ingredients, processed foods and ultra-processed foods.
According to NOVA, examples of UPFs include carbonated soft drinks, sweet or savoury packaged snacks such as crisps, confectionery, ice-cream and mass-produced packaged breads and buns.
“These findings suggest that UPF consumption represents a relevant public health issue globally, and policy responses should reshape food systems to incentive the consumption of fresh and minimally processed foods as well as culinary preparations and disincentive UPFs,” the authors of the study wrote.
They then argued that reducing the consumption of UPFs required the implementation of multiple interventions and policies such as “creating healthy and supportive environments, through various strategies, including food-based dietary guidelines and fiscal and regulatory policies”.
The authors also recommended increased “regulation of food marketing and sales of foods in school and work environments, the implementation of front-of-package nutritional labelling, subsidies for the production and sales of fresh local foods and taxation of UPFs”.
The research was greeted Jeff Webster, the co-founder of food business Hunter & Gather, who said the findings came as “no surprise”.
“The trend and correlation with the food environment and chronic lifestyle disease has been accelerating over the past 100 years,” Webster added.
“We’re a brand that champions removing refined sugars, grains and seed oils - the trifectas that are all too often present in junk food/UPFs.
“Consumers are turning their backs on the ultra-processed options and demanding products that are free of the trifectas.”
However, Anthony Warner, a consultant development chef at New Food Innovation, cast doubt over the value of the study.
“I am not really sure what the point of this sort of study is, other than to create a big scary headline about early death,” he said.
“It is just one of many observational studies on this subject. It is not reporting any new data and cannot tell us anything new about causality. Most consumers and many journalists will take at face value that UPFs cause thousands of early deaths, but this study is saying no such thing.”
Warner added that the term UPF was too broad to discuss in narrow terms.
“[The UPF category] contains things that we know to be unhealthy, which probably explains a lot of the associations with poor outcomes in observational studies like this,” he continued.