Doctor names 1 food linked to worst health outcomes, especially death

Doctor names 1 food linked to worst health outcomes, especially death We eat loads of it in the UK. A leading scientist says there is evidence to link one category of food to multiple poor health outcomes, including death. Prof Felice Jacka even said that there was "particularly strong evidence" for the food's link to death and also linked it with heart disease, diabetes and common mental health disorders. It comes after a heart doctor labelled one popular drink "liquid death" (and it's not alcohol). Prof Jacka was a guest on the Zoe podcast and she cited a wide-ranging study published in the British Medical Journal she was involved in researching. She said: "We had data from more than 10 million people in this large umbrella review and... we looked at a whole heap of different health outcomes and we saw that 70% of them were linked to higher intake of ultra-processed foods." The study concludes : "Greater exposure to ultra-processed food was associated with a higher risk of adverse health outcomes, especially cardiometabolic, common mental disorder, and mortality outcomes." Among the poor health outcomes the study cited as having links with "greater ultra-processed food exposure" were cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, anxiety and other common mental disorders, poor sleep, wheezing and obesity, as well as "all-cause mortality". Prof Jacka also linked ultra-processed food (UPF) to cancer. She said: "When... you looked at individual cancers you might not see that all of the cancers were linked to ultra-processed food intake but quite a number were." What is ultra-processed food? Food processing has existed in some form throughout human history. At a very basic level, anything you do to alter food could be classed as processing, including cooking, fermenting, pickling, curing, canning and so on. Cheese, yoghurt and bread are processed foods. However, scientists are not raising concerns around processed food, they are concentrating on ultra-processed food. This is food which has undergone far more alteration than, for example, turning milk into yoghurt or flour into bread. It means the food contains ingredients like chemical-based preservatives, emulsifiers, sweeteners, artificial colours and flavours. UPFs also often undergo chemical or industrial processing techniques that leave the final products bearing little or no resemblance to the original ingredients. One UPF definition that is commonly repeated is "foods that have one or more ingredients that wouldn’t be found in a kitchen". What is a common indicator of ultra-processed food? While it is far from the only example, Prof Jacka cited one particular ingredient she looked out for. She said: "In many ultra-processed foods, in fact pretty much all of them, and even in non-ultra-processed foods actually, we're getting a huge number of things that we think are detrimental to the gut. "One of them is emulsifiers. And if you look on any packet nowadays, emulsifiers of different sorts, sometimes they've got a number, but they are in everything. And the animal science suggests that what they do is they impair the gut lining, which we know is really important to keep healthy." She said that "as a shorthand" method to identify whether a food is ultra-processed before she buys it, she "just looks at whether there are emulsifiers present in the food and I tend to avoid the ones that have got emulsifiers". She added: "Now, that's a really simplistic way but it's something that is really useful when you're rushing and you're really busy and everything else." She added: "People have known about cancers and obesity and that's hit the press. What hasn't really hit the press is how.... these foods affect brain diseases." Prof Jacka is a leading researcher of nutritional psychiatry, a new field of study that looks at the role of diet in mental and brain health. She is also the co-director of the Food & Mood Centre at Deakin University in Australia and president of the International Society for Nutritional Psychiatry Research. She has a doctorate in philosophy. Also appearing on the podcast was Professor Tim Spector, one of the world's most-cited scientists and a Zoe founder. He said low-processed foods were not a worry to him and even said that all foods, including UPFs, can be enjoyed "occasionally" but that they became a problem "if you have them regularly, as many people do". Prof Spector has said that UPFs make up a "staggering" 60% of our diet in the UK, the highest level in Europe. What are popular ultra-processed foods? This list is not exhaustive but some of the most common ultra-processed foods are: - breakfast cereals and granola - flavoured yoghurt - chocolate and biscuits - pre-made cakes and cake bars - crisps - energy bars - fizzy drinks - ready and pre-made meals and snacks.