A new study finds that eating a lot of ultra-processed foods increases your risk of cognitive decline and stroke, even if you're following the Mediterranean, DASH, or MIND diet.
All three diets are plant-based and focus on eating more fruits and vegetables, whole grains, beans, and seeds while limiting sugar, red meat, and ultra-processed foods.
“In this study, a 10 percent increase in ultra-processed food intake was associated with a 16 percent increased risk of cognitive impairment,” said cardiologist Andrew, director of cardiovascular prevention and health management at National Jewish Health in Denver. Dr. Freeman said. He was not involved in this research.
“You can always extrapolate, 'If the intake of ultra-processed foods increases by 100%, that person has a 160% chance of becoming cognitively impaired,'” he said. “Of course, this study only shows an association, not direct cause and effect.”
Conversely, eating more unprocessed or minimally processed foods was associated with a 12 percent lower risk of cognitive impairment, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Neurology.
Unprocessed foods include fresh fruits and vegetables, eggs, and milk. Minimally processed foods include cooking ingredients such as salt, herbs, and oil, and foods that combine cooking ingredients with unprocessed foods, such as canned or frozen vegetables.
Ultra-processed foods include prepackaged soups, sauces, frozen pizza, ready meals, hot dogs, sausages, french fries, soda, store-bought cookies, cakes, candy, donuts, ice cream and other indulgences.
Experts say these foods are typically high in calories, have added sugar and salt, and are low in fiber. All of these can lead to cardiometabolic health problems, weight gain, obesity, type 2 diabetes, and high blood pressure.
Increased risk of stroke
The study analyzed data from 30,000 participants in the REGARD (Reasons for Geographic and Racial Disparities in Stroke) study, a nationally diverse population followed for up to 20 years.
Dr. W. Taylor Kimberly, a neurologist and director of neurocritical care in Massachusetts, found that people who added the most ultra-processed foods to their diets ate the least processed foods. They had an 8% higher risk of stroke compared to humans. A general hospital in Boston.
For black participants, the risk rose to 15 percent, likely due to the effect of ultra-processed foods on high blood pressure in that population, Kimberly said. But eating more unprocessed or minimally processed foods was associated with a 9 percent lower risk of stroke, the study found.
Why might ultra-processed foods undermine efforts to eat a healthy diet? Their poor nutritional content and tendency to spike blood sugar levels could be to blame, write Peibei Gao and Zhendong Mei in an editorial published alongside the study.
May is a medical research fellow at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, and Gao is a graduate student in nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, also in Boston. Neither was involved in the study.
Type 2 diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure and high cholesterol are all major risk factors for vascular disease of the heart and brain, the researchers write.
The effects on blood vessels, which can lead to stroke and cognitive decline, may also be due to “the presence of additives such as emulsifiers, colorants, sweeteners, and nitrates/nitrites, which are associated with disruption of the gut microbial ecosystem and inflammation.” added the researchers.
The growing dangers of ultra-processed foods
There's a mountain of research on the dangers of eating ultra-processed foods: A February review of 45 meta-analyses involving nearly 10 million people found that eating 10% more ultra-processed foods increased the risk of developing or dying from dozens of adverse health conditions.
This 10% increase is considered a “baseline,” and adding more ultra-processed foods could increase the risk, experts say.
The review found strong evidence that a high intake of ultra-processed foods was associated with around a 50% higher risk of cardiovascular disease-related death and common mental disorders.
Researchers also found that increased intake of ultra-processed foods increased the risk of obesity by 55%, the risk of sleep disorders by 41%, the risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 40%, and the risk of depression by 20%. We also found some very suggestive evidence.
“We really need to see labels on the ultra-processed food aisles and on packaging like we do with cigarettes, saying 'Warning, this food may be harmful to your health,'” Freeman said.
“What we think of as 'convenience foods' needs to change from packets of chips to shelf-stable apples and carrots that can be carried in a purse or backpack,” she said. “And we need to make these foods more readily available, especially to children and in food deserts where most of the food available is often ultra-processed.”
