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Two new studies on ultra-processed foods link them to a higher risk of developing heart disease and Parkinson’s disease.
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Ultra-processed foods make up around 70 percent of America’s food supply, so they’re hard to eliminate entirely.
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But eating too much could impact your heart and brain health by increasing inflammation, oxidative stress, and insulin resistance.
If you haven’t stayed up-to-date on health news lately, here’s a quick headline for you: Ultra-processed foods aren’t so great for your health. In fact, studies have linked them to a slew of health issues including diabetes and cancer risk, and having a lot of ultra-processed foods in your diet can even potentially make you age faster. But up to 70 percent of the food supply in America is made up of these products, making them tough to entirely avoid.
Still, it’s a never a bad idea to take a step back to assess what you’re eating on a daily basis, especially when we’re still learning about how ultra-processed foods could affect us. Case in point: Two recent studies have found an association between eating ultra-processed foods and a higher risk of developing heart disease and Parkinson’s disease. Given how life-altering each of these conditions can be, it’s understandable to have concerns.
Here’s what dietitians and doctors want you to keep in mind.
Meet the experts: Keri Gans, RDN, CDN, nutrition consultant and host of The Keri Report; Jessica Cording, RD, author of The Little Book of Game-Changers: 50 Healthy Habits For Managing Stress & Anxiety; Sonya Angelone, RD, a nutritionist and registered dietitian based in San Francisco, California; Cheng-Han Chen, MD, an interventional cardiologist and medical director of the Structural Heart Program at MemorialCare Saddleback Medical Center in Laguna Hills, CA; Daniel Truong, MD, neurologist and medical director of the Truong Neuroscience Institute at MemorialCare Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, CA.
What did the heart disease study find?
The heart disease study isn’t published yet, but it was presented at the American College of Cardiology’s annual meeting in May. The scientific review analyzed data from 8,286,940 adults across 41 studies that looked at the link between ultra-processed foods and health issues.
The researchers found a link between ultra-processed foods and high blood pressure, cardiovascular events (like a heart attack), cancer, digestive diseases, and dying from any cause. Each extra 100 grams (3.5 ounces) a day of ultra-processed foods was linked with a 14.5 percent higher risk of high blood pressure, 5.9 percent increased risk of cardiovascular events, 1.2 percent increased risk of cancer, 19.5 percent higher risk of digestive diseases and 2.6 percent higher risk of dying from any cause, according to the findings.
There was also a link between eating ultra-processed foods and an increased risk of obesity, diabetes, and depression or anxiety.
“Reducing ultra-processed foods intake, even modestly, may offer measurable health benefits,” study co-author Xiao Liu, MD, a cardiologist at Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China, said in a statement.
What did the brain degeneration study find?
This study was published in the journal Neurology and analyzed data from nearly 43,000 people with an average age of 48 who didn’t have Parkinson’s disease at the start of the study.
The participants were followed for 26 years, during which time they completed regular medical exams, filled out food diaries, and answered health questionnaires. The researchers divided the participants into five groups based on how much ultra-processed foods they ate per day. They discovered that people who ate 11 or more servings of ultra-processed foods a day had a 2.5 times higher risk of having three or more early signs of Parkinson’s disease than those who had less than three servings a day. (Those early signs included things like rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder, constipation, depressive symptoms, body pain, impaired color vision, excessive daytime sleepiness, and a reduced ability to smell.)
It’s important to point out that what the researchers counted as a “serving” can really add up. Like, one tablespoon of ketchup is a serving, and so is an ounce of potato chips.
While the study didn’t find that ultra-processed foods caused people to develop Parkinson’s disease, the researchers pointed out that these early symptoms tend to come before a Parkinson’s disease diagnosis.
Why might ultra-processed foods affect your heart and brain?
There are a few potential biological things going on here that could be resulting in this data that links ultra-processed foods with heart and brain health issues.
“It is thought that ultra-processed foods affect cardiovascular health through multiple mechanisms, including promotion of inflammation, increasing oxidative stress, and increasing insulin resistance,” explains Cheng-Han Chen, MD, an interventional cardiologist and medical director of the Structural Heart Program at MemorialCare Saddleback Medical Center in Laguna Hills, CA. This can cause damage to blood vessels, create a build-up of plaque in your arteries—and raise the risk of heart attack or stroke, he explains.
But despite the health risks, ultra-processed foods can be hard to resist, says Daniel Truong, MD, neurologist and medical director of the Truong Neuroscience Institute at MemorialCare Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, CA. They “rapidly stimulate the brain’s reward system, similar to addictive substances like nicotine and alcohol,” per Dr. Truong.
As a result, you may end up eating a lot of these foods, raising the risk of health issues in the process.
How else can ultra-processed foods harm your health?
A big potential issue with ultra-processed foods is that they tend to crowd out healthier options, says Jessica Cording, MS, RD, author of The Little Book of Game-Changers: 50 Healthy Habits For Managing Stress & Anxiety. “If [a person is] eating a lot of ultra-processed foods that don’t offer much in the way of nutrients but contain a lot of calories, it can set them up for adverse health issues,” she says.
Plus, these foods have been associated with higher risk of cancer, digestive problems, depression, anxiety, and diabetes, says Sonya Angelone, RD, a nutritionist based in San Francisco, CA. “There is a dose-response relationship between these foods and poor health, which means the more ultra-processed foods you eat, the greater the risk for negative health,” she adds.
But there’s some good news: “Reducing these foods even a little bit with less processed whole foods can provide some health improvements,” says Dr. Angelone.
That’s why it’s so crucial to focus on whole foods when building out your diet, says Keri Gans, RDN, CDN, nutrition consultant and host of The Keri Report. “Instead of obsessing over what to cut out of our diets, we should think more about adding more plant-based foods, such as 100 percent whole grains, veggies, fruits, nuts, seeds, and legumes,” she says.
Cording says there’s no need to panic if you have some ultra-processed foods in your diet, given that they’re almost impossible to completely avoid. But focusing on sourcing the bulk of your diet from whole foods could make a big difference in your overall health. “Just do your best,” she says.
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