Eating ready meals makes you 23 per cent more likely to die from three major killers, study shows

People who eat lots of ultra-processed-foods (UPFs) like ready meals could be around 25 per cent more likely to die from Parkinson’s disease, a study of more than 400,000 people has revealed.

Junk food eaters were also around 10 per cent less likely to survive a stroke or heart attack.

Regardless of underlying condition, eating lots of ultra-processed food raised the risk of early death by four per cent.

However, replacing a fraction of a person’s daily junk food intake with fruit and vegetables can reduce the risk of death from all causes by six per cent.

The study followed over 400,000 Europeans from nine countries between the ages of 35 and 74 for nearly 16 years, and tracked their diet along with health outcomes. 

Writing in the journal The Lancet Regional Health – Europe, the researchers said their results provided more evidence on the potential benefits of eating fewer UPFs.

‘Promoting the consumption of unprocessed/minimally processed foods while discouraging highly processed foods in dietary recommendations may be beneficial for health,’ they wrote. 

UPFs — such as crisps, shop-bought cakes, biscuits and some packaged cold meats — are typically packed with high levels of salt and sugar as well as industrial colourings, flavour enhancers, emulsifiers and preservatives.

These foods typically undergo multiple industrial processes which research has found degrades the physical structure of foods, makingit absorb rapidly into the bloodstream.

This in turn increases blood sugar, reduces satiety and damages the microbiome — the community of ‘friendly’ bacteria that live inside our guts, which we depend for good health.

Food additives like non-nutritive sweeteners, modified starches, gums and emulsifiers have been linked to gut inflammation and hormonal responses to food that may increase risk of heart attack and stroke.

Most striking in the latest findings was the 23 per cent higher risk of death from Parkinson’s disease in those who ate above-average levels of UPF — defined as at least study 13.7 per cent of a participant’s daily food intake.

Parkinson’s, which causes nerve cells in the brain die, resulting in movement problems, doesn’t cause death directly. 

However, the condition places great strain on the body which in turn leaves a person vulnerable to deadly infections.

A UPF-rich diet also increased the risk of death from ‘digestive diseases’ — an umbrella term that includes problems like liver disease, complications from stomach ulcers and appendicitis by 12 per cent.   

Odds of dying from a stroke rose by 11 per cent, and fatalities from cardiovascular problems like heart disease by between 5 to 9 per cent.

The Nova system, developed by scientists in Brazil more than a decade ago, splits food into four groups based on the amount of processing it has gone through. Unprocessed foods include fruit, vegetables, nuts, eggs and meat. Processed culinary ingredients — which are usually not eaten alone — include oils, butter, sugar and salt

These results remained consistent even the researchers excluded participants’ alcohol intake from the results.

However, the team found no link between UPF consumption and increased risk of death from cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.

A separate part of the study also calculated what would happen if people swapped just 10 per cent of the UPFs they ate for unprocessed foods like fresh fruit and vegetables. 

The swap led to a 22 per cent reduced chance of death from Parkinson’s, an 18 per cent lesser chance of death from digestive diseases, stroke by 13 per cent, and heart issues by 11 to 12 per cent.

The study was based on data from 428,728 people, the majority, (70 per cent) being women.

Dietary information was collected via multiple surveys designed to glean what participants had eaten over the past year.

Diets were then ranked by quantity of ultra-processed foods — from mostly minimally-processed to high in UPFs.

Norway recorded the highest average intake of UPFs by nation with foods like ready meals and frozen pizzas, accounting for nearly 23 per cent of all food consumed by weight.

UPFs refers to items which contain ingredients people would not usually add when they were cooking homemade food. These additions might include chemicals, colourings, sweeteners and preservatives that extend shelf life

The UK came second, with almost a fifth of food eaten by Brits a type of UPF, with Germany coming third at 17 per cent.

In contrast, France had lowest UPF consumption at just 7 per cent of food consumed, followed by Spain at 8 per cent and Italy at 10 per cent. 

Like similar research, the results of the latest study are observational meaning it cannot be proven that UPFs were directly responsible for any health outcomes.

Data on participants’ diet was only recorded at the start of the study, which means they may have changed their diet since, potentially influencing the results.  

The latest study comes on the back of a major review last year which found eating a lot of foods UPFs was linked to an increased risk of 32 health problems including cancer, type 2 diabetes and mental health disorders.

UPFs are thought to be a key driver of obesity, which costs the NHS around £6.5billion a year. 

There is an ongoing debate among experts regarding whether UPFs are to blame for health problems directly, or if the people who eat them tend to be more vulnerable to health problems.

Part of the problem is that those who eat large amounts of UPFs are, on average, unhealthier in general and poorer, both factors that may influence or exacerbate bad health outcomes. 

Further, some ultra-processed foods might be worse for your health than others and this is rarely accounted for in studies. 

Experts have previously described the ‘nebulous’ nature of the term ‘ultra-processed food’.

They highlight that it doesn’t distinguish between a ready meal packed with fat, salt and sugar and a wholemeal loaf of bread the latter of which, while still classified as UPF, does have some health benefits.