Higher consumption of most ultra-processed foods is linked to a slightly higher risk of death, with ready-to-eat meat, poultry, and seafood based products, sugary drinks, dairy based desserts, and highly processed breakfast foods showing the strongest associations, finds a 30-year US study in The BMJ today.
Mounting evidence links ultra-processed foods to higher risks of obesity, heart disease, diabetes and bowel cancer, but few long term studies have examined links to all cause and cause specific deaths, especially due to cancer.
To address this knowledge gap, researchers tracked the long-term health of 74,563 female registered nurses from 11 US states in the Nurses' Health Study and 39,501 male health professionals from all 50 US states in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study with no history of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, or diabetes at study enrollment.
Compared with participants in the lowest quarter of ultra-processed food intake (average 3 servings per day), those in the highest quarter (average 7 servings per day) had a 4% higher risk of total deaths and a 9% higher risk of other deaths, including an 8% higher risk of neurodegenerative deaths.
The association between ultra-processed food intake and death varied across specific food groups, with meat, poultry, and seafood-based ready-to-eat products showing the strongest and most consistent associations, followed by sugar-sweetened and artificially-sweetened beverages, dairy-based desserts, and ultra-processed breakfast food.
Mechanism outlined by which inadequate vitamin E can cause brain damage
Oregon State University, May 3, 2024 (Daily Science)
Researchers at Oregon State University have discovered how vitamin E deficiency may cause neurological damage by interrupting a supply line of specific nutrients and robbing the brain of the "building blocks" it needs to maintain neuronal health.
The research showed that zebrafish fed a diet deficient in vitamin E throughout their life had about 30 percent lower levels of DHA-PC, which is a part of the cellular membrane in every brain cell, or neuron. Other recent studies have also concluded that low levels of DHA-PC in the blood plasma of humans is a biomarker than can predict a higher risk of Alzheimer's disease.
Just as important, the new research studied the level of compounds called "lyso PLs," which are nutrients needed for getting DHA into the brain, and serve as building blocks that aid in membrane repair. It showed the lyso PLs are an average of 60 percent lower in fish with a vitamin E deficient diet.
The year-old zebrafish used in this study, and the deficient levels of vitamin E they were given, are equivalent to humans eating a low vitamin E diet for a lifetime. In the United States, 96 percent of adult women and 90 percent of men do not receive adequate levels of vitamin E in their diet.
"This research showed that vitamin E is needed to prevent a dramatic loss of a critically important molecule in the brain, and helps explain why vitamin E is needed for brain health," said Maret Traber, at OSU and lead author on this research.
About 90% of US adults are on the way to heart disease, study suggests
Brigham and Women's Hospital & Harvard Medical School, May 8, 2024 (Medical Xpress)
Nine of 10 American adults are in the early, middle or late stages of a syndrome that leads to heart disease, a new report finds, and almost 10% have the disease already.
"Poor cardiovascular, kidney, and metabolic health is widespread among the U.S. population," concludes a team led by Dr. Muthiah Vaduganathan of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston.
Researchers looked specifically at rates of what the American Heart Association has dubbed cardiovascular, kidney and metabolic (CKM) syndrome
Among adults age 20 or older, only 10.6% did not have some level of CKM syndrome. About 26% fell into the early stage 1 category, meaning they were gaining dangerous levels of body fat. Nearly half (49%) of adults fell into stage 2 CVM syndrome, and 5.4% were stage 3.
According to the study, 9.2% of adults were in stage 4, with full-blown heart disease and, in some cases, failed kidneys.
The bottom line: "Almost 90% of US adults met criteria for CKM syndrome (stage 1 or higher) and 15% met criteria for advanced stages, neither of which improved between 2011 and 2020," according to the Boston researchers.
