Processed food and cancer

A recent research warns that highly processed foods (HPF) loaded with sugar, fat and salt increase the risk of overweight, obesity, type-2 diabetes and heart disease.

HPF include packaged baked goods, instant soups, reconstituted meat, frozen meats and shelf-stable snacks.

According to Dr Mathide Touvier and colleagues of Sorbonne Paris Cite Epidemiology and Statistics Research Centre in Paris, France – all these contain substances that may significantly increase the overall risk for cancer and specifically for breast cancer.

The report results from a prospective study of more than 100,000 participants from NutriNet-Sante cohort published recently.

The research found that there is a 10% increase in HPF in diet increased the overall cancer risk by 11%. The foods included highly processed fats, sauces, sugary products including sugary drinks.

Dr Mathide Touvier and colleagues feel that ‘the rapidly increasing consumption of ultra-processed foods may drive an incresing ‘burden of cancer in the next decades’.

Tom Sanders, DSC, PhD, professor emeritus of nutrition and dietetics, King’s College London, said: “The approach of categorising dietary patterns that depend on industrially processed food in relation to disease risk is novel but probably needs refining before it can be translated into practical dietary advice.

 “The term ‘ultra-processed food’ is difficult to define in terms of food quality and is not widely used by nutritional scientists,” he noted. “This study appears to be focused on demonstrating that industrially processed foods increase the risk of cancer. The ultra-processed foods are focused on foods such as pot noodles, breakfast cereals, industrially processed bread, pizza, cakes, crisps, ready-to-eat desserts, meatballs and chicken nuggets, confectionery, and fizzy drinks, including those that are artificially sweetened. However, the definition excludes many homemade or artisanal foods, such as bread, cakes, biscuits, butter, meat, cheese, tinned fruit and vegetables, as well as sugar and salt used in domestic food preparation. From a nutritional standpoint, this classification seems arbitrary and based on the premise that food produced industrially has a different nutritional and chemical composition from that produced in the home or by artisans. This is not the case.”
 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You May also Like