How ultra-processed foods could be ageing you faster

Ultra -processed foods are found throughout many Australian pantries and fill up multiple aisles in our supermarket. Tasty, cheap and efficient, these foods are popular for people who are time poor and have a bit of a sweet tooth.

Unfortunately though, eating too many ultra-processed foods is not just bad for our waistlines but could speed up the biological ageing process, according to new research.

The Monash University led study looked at how ultra-processed foods (UPF) affected our bodies and found that just increasing our intake of UPF by 10 per cent would age our bodies by 2.4 months.

Monash University academic and lead author Dr Barbara Cardoso said the findings underlined the importance of eating as many unprocessed and minimally processed foods as possible and more research was needed in this under investigated area.

“The significance of our findings is tremendous, as our predictions show that for every 10 per cent increase in ultra-processed food consumption there is a nearly two per cent increased risk of mortality and 0.5 per cent risk of incident chronic disease over two years,” Dr Cardoso said.

“Assuming a standard diet of 2,000 calories (8500 kilojoules) per day, adding an extra 200 calories of ultra-processed food, which roughly equals an 80-gram serving of chicken bites or a small chocolate bar, could lead to the biological ageing process advancing by more than two months compared to chronological ageing.”

UPF typically have more than one ingredient that you never or rarely find in a kitchen and tend to also include many additives and ingredients that are not typically used in home cooking such as preservatives, emulsifiers and sweeteners.

They include foods such as chips, carbonated drinks, instant noodles, ice cream, chocolate, biscuits, ready-to-eat meals, sausages, burgers, chicken and fish nuggets, sweet or savoury packaged snacks and energy bars.

While the study assessed data from 6,055 people from the US aged 20-79, their health and lifestyles were comparable to those in other Western countries such as Australia.

The study used data from the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) from the years 2003 to 2010 and diet quality was assessed with information from the American Heart Association (AHA)and the Healthy Eating Index.

After assessing the data, the research team discovered that participants who ate the most amount of ultra-processed foods (about 68–100 per cent of their diet was UPF) were 0.86 biologically years older than their peers who only ate 39 per cent or less ultra-processed in their diet.

The research team surmise that this association could be due to other factors such as lower intake of flavonoids or phytoestrogens, which occur in natural foods such as fresh fruit and vegetables, or higher exposure to packaging chemicals and compounds formed during food processing.

“Adults with higher UPF tended to be biologically older,” the study found.

“This association is partly independent of diet quality, suggesting that food processing may contribute to biological ageing acceleration.

“Our findings point to a compelling reason to target UPF consumption to promote healthier ageing.”

IMPORTANT LEGAL INFO This article is of a general nature and FYI only, because it doesn’t take into account your personal health requirements or existing medical conditions. That means it’s not personalised health advice and shouldn’t be relied upon as if it is. Before making a health-related decision, you should work out if the info is appropriate for your situation and get professional medical advice.