Packaged snacks and soda drinks shorten shelf life, 30-year study finds

New Delhi:

Do you love to binge on packaged baked goods and snacks, soda drinks, sugary cereals, and ready-to-eat or heat foods? Be careful, it may shorten your life expectancy and increase your risk of premature death, according to a 30-year study published in The BMJ on Thursday.

The risk is because ultra-processed foods often contain colorings, emulsifiers, flavors and other additives and are often high in energy, added sugar, saturated fat and salt, but lack vitamins and fiber, which harms health. health and increases the risk of obesity, diabetes and hypertension, which can further increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer.

For the study, an international team of researchers from the US, Brazil and China tracked the long-term health of 74,563 registered nurses from 11 US states between 1984 and 2018; and 39,501 male health professionals from all 50 US states between 1986 and 2018 with no history of cancer, cardiovascular disease, or diabetes.

The results revealed that eating an average of 7 servings per day of ultra-processed foods caused a 4 percent increased risk of total deaths and a 9 percent increased risk of other deaths, including an 8 percent increased risk of neurodegenerative deaths.

The rate of death from any cause among participants in this group was 1,536 per 100,000 person-years.

Additionally, eating ready-to-eat products based on meat, poultry, and seafood showed the highest risk of premature death, followed by sugar-sweetened and artificially sweetened beverages, dairy-based desserts, and ultra-processed breakfast foods.

Although this was an observational study, so no firm conclusions can be drawn about cause and effect, “the findings support the need to limit consumption of certain types of ultra-processed foods for long-term health,” the researchers said. researchers.

“Future studies are warranted to improve the classification of ultra-processed foods and confirm our findings in other populations,” they added.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated channel.)