Ultra-processed foods alter the cells responsible for biological aging.
- The scientists based themselves on the telomeres, small structures present in our chromosomes, which shorten with age.
- Participants who ate the most ultra-processed foods were nearly twice as likely to have short telomeres.
Another bad point for ultra-processed foods, whose harmful impact on health has now been demonstrated by numerous studies. According to new research, this type of food accelerates aging.
To reach these conclusions, the scientists based themselves on the telomeres, small structures present in our chromosomes, which shorten with age. “Telomere length is a marker of biological age that can be affected by dietary factors via oxidative and inflammatory mechanisms,” specify the researchers in the preamble. From this statement, “we sought to assess the association between the consumption of ultra-processed foods and the risk of having short telomeres in an elderly population”, they continue.
Telomere length
The study cohort included 886 participants, including 645 men and 241 women, all aged between 57 and 91 years old. Telomere length was measured from saliva samples. The consumption of ultra-processed foods was assessed according to the following grid: low consumption, moderately low consumption, moderately high consumption and high consumption.
Results : “participants who ate the most ultra-processed foods were nearly twice as likely to have short telomeres,” therefore presented a greater biological aging than those who ate healthily.
An ultra-processed food opposes the raw product
This work was conducted by Lucia Alonso-Pedrero, under the supervision of Amelia Marti of the University of Navarre (Pamplona, Spain), and appeared in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
To put it simply, an ultra-processed food is opposed to the raw product, which you buy and cook yourself. “The most recent definition (2017) presents ultra-processed foods as elaborate industrial formulations, containing at least 5 ingredients such as fats, sugar, salt and especially additives not used in domestic cooking, intended to imitate natural properties of raw foods or to mask unwanted flavors”, complete the Cerin.
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