High consumption of ultra-processed foods and red meat is associated with higher mortality.
- Researchers advise cutting down on ultra-processed foods and red meat to live longer
- Consumption of ultra-processed foods has the same impact on the mortality of vegetarians as non-vegetarians
Avoid ultra-processed foods and avoid eating red meat, these are the recommendations of researchers at Loma Linda University in California to live longer.
Their study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, adds to a growing body of knowledge on the impact of ultra-processed foods and red meat on human health and longevity.
Soft drinks, certain meat analogues – which means a meat-like substance made from vegetarian ingredients, and candies, are examples of ultra-processed foods.
Common denominator of mortality
This study included one of the largest cohorts, with over 77,000 participants, and also considered a wide range of diets, including vegetarians and non-vegetarians.
It assessed the mortality risks of two independent dietary factors: the proportion of the diet composed of ultra-processed foods compared to less processed foods and the proportion of the diet composed of animal-based foods (meats, eggs and dairy products) compared to plant-based foods.
“The results provided new insights into ultra-processed foods as a common denominator of mortality among vegetarians and non-vegetarians alike,” says research physician Gary Fraser, one of the study’s authors, and a professor at Loma Linda University School of Medicine and School of Public Health.
Healthy or unhealthy vegetarian diet
“Our study answers the question of what can make a vegetarian diet healthy or unhealthy,” adds Fraser. relates to mortality than the proportion of foods of animal origin they consume, the exception being red meat.”
Isolating the health impacts of processed foods in the diet – whether vegetarian or not, this study finds that vegetarians who consume a lot of processed foods face a similar proportional increase in mortality outcomes as non-vegetarians who eat a lot of processed foods.
200 foods screened
Participants completed a food frequency questionnaire including more than 200 foods to describe their diet.
They also provided other demographic and health information about them, including gender, race, geographic region, education level, marital status, smoking and drinking rate, physical exercise , sleep, BMI and cardiovascular disease or diabetes.
This information was added to the mortality data, provided by the National Death Indexa database of all deaths in the United States, over an average period of about seven and a half years. The researchers were thus able to produce an analysis of mortality by cause.
14% increase in mortality
Fraser and his co-authors found that people who got half of their total calories from ultra-processed foods faced a 14% increase in mortality compared to people who got just 12.5 % of their total calories from those same foods.
It also appears that high levels of consumption of ultra-processed foods were associated with mortality linked to respiratory, neurological and renal diseases – in particular Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (even in limited to people who have never smoked).
They also found a statistically significant 8% increase in mortality risk associated with moderate consumption (about 50 grams) of red meat compared to not consuming it.