• Posted April 28, 2025

Ultra-Processed Foods Increase Risk Of Early Death

The more ultra-processed food a person regularly eats, the higher their risk of an early death, a new evidence review has concluded.

Each 10% increase in ultra-processed foods in a person’s diet increases their risk of early death from any cause by 3%, researchers reported today in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

It's estimated that these industrially produced foods are accountable for tens of thousands of premature deaths worldwide.

The U.S. has the highest levels of ultra-processed food intake, making up more than 54% of the average American diet, researchers said.

More than 124,000 early deaths due to ultra-processed food consumption occurred in the U.S. in 2017-2018, researchers estimate.

“This shows that policies that disincentivize the consumption of ultra-processed are urgently needed globally, promoting traditional dietary patterns based on local fresh and minimally processed foods,” lead researcher Eduardo Nilson of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in Brazil said in a news release.

Ultra-processed foods are made mostly from substances extracted from whole foods, like saturated fats, starches and added sugars. They also contain a wide variety of additives to make them more tasty, attractive and shelf-stable, including colors, emulsifiers, flavors and stabilizers.

Examples include packaged baked goods, sugary cereals, ready-to-eat or ready-to-heat products and deli cold cuts.

Consumption of ultra-processed foods has been associated with 32 health problems, including heart disease, obesity, diabetes, some types of cancer, and depression, researchers said in background notes.

For this study, researchers pooled data from previous studies of ultra-processed food consumption in eight countries — Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, the U.K. and the United States.

The team then assessed the amount of ultra-processed food in the diets of average people from each of the countries.

Colombia had the lowest levels, with ultra-processed foods representing about 15% of daily calorie intake, and the U.S. had the highest. The U.K. was right behind, with more than 53% of daily calorie intake.

Researchers then calculated the percentage of premature deaths in each country caused by the health effects of ultra-processed foods. Deaths ranged from about 4% in Colombia and Brazil to nearly 14% in the U.S. and U.K.

Based on that percentage, researchers estimated how many early deaths occurred in each country at the time of the study from which their data were drawn.

"It is concerning that, while in high-income countries ultra-processed food consumption is already high but relatively stable for over a decade, in low- and middle-income countries the consumption has continuously increased, meaning that while the attributable burden in high-income countries is currently higher, it is growing in the other countries,” Nilson said.

More information

The Cleveland Clinic has more on ultra-processed foods.

SOURCE: Elsevier, news release, April 28, 2025