Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) could be responsible for approximately a quarter of all heart disease cases and related deaths, according to new research published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine and presented at the International Congress on Obesity in Mexico. The findings indicate that fatalities could be significantly reduced if people lowered their consumption of UPFs.
Study Details and Key Findings
Scientists, including those from the University of Montreal in Canada, analysed Canadian patient records to examine cardiovascular disease—ailments affecting the heart and blood vessels, including heart attacks and strokes. The analysis revealed that between 23% and 38% of all cardiovascular disease incidents in 2019 could be attributed to UPF consumption. This amounts to 58,200 to 96,000 new cases of cardiovascular disease, alongside 10,600 to 17,400 cardiovascular disease-related deaths, plus disability for thousands of patients.
Cutting UPF consumption by 20% to 50% could have prevented 16,800 to 45,900 new cases of cardiovascular disease and 3,100 to 8,300 related deaths, the scientists said. They concluded: “These findings reinforce the need for clinical and public health interventions aimed at reducing UPF intake as a key component of cardiovascular disease prevention. To drive meaningful change in dietary patterns, comprehensive structural measures are essential. These include regulations on food taxes, front-of-package labelling, marketing restrictions and reformulation targets aimed at improving food quality.”
Common Examples and Consumption in the UK
Common examples of UPFs include ice cream, processed meats, crisps, mass-produced bread, certain breakfast cereals, biscuits, numerous ready meals, and fizzy drinks. They typically contain additives not found in home cooking, such as preservatives, emulsifiers, and artificial colours and flavours. In the UK, an average of 56% of daily calories come from UPFs, rising to 68% among teenagers—considerably higher than in comparable European nations like France and Italy.
Expert Critiques and Alternative Perspectives
Professor Alberto Fiore from Abertay University in Dundee criticised the study, calling it a modelling study rather than a clinical trial. He stated: “This is a modelling study, not a clinical trial—it does not measure what actually happened to people who ate more or fewer ultra-processed foods. It takes a 2015 dietary snapshot, applies a risk multiplier borrowed from studies in France, Italy and the US, and projects how many CVD events might be attributable to UPF consumption.”
He noted that the authors’ own sensitivity analysis reduces the headline figure of 96,000 avoidable CVD cases by nearly 40%, depending on the risk estimate used. Professor Fiore added: “The deeper problem is one this study cannot resolve: are we actually measuring the effect of industrial processing, or are we simply measuring the well-known harms of a poor diet that happens to come in a packet? The paper itself tells us the answer. It acknowledges that ‘ultra-processed dietary patterns’ are characterised by excess free sugars, saturated fats, and sodium, and low fibre—and it separately estimates that targeting free sugars and sodium alone could prevent thousands of CVD deaths per year in Canada. If standard nutritional harms already explain the observed risk, then the concept of ‘ultra-processing’ is doing no independent scientific work whatsoever.”
He pointed out that when CVD findings are examined by food subcategory, they are “overwhelmingly driven by sugar-sweetened beverages and processed meat products. These are foods whose harmfulness has been established for decades on purely nutritional grounds—high free sugar, high saturated fat, high sodium, low fibre—with no need to invoke the concept of industrial processing at all.”
Stroke Association Response
Maeva May, director of policy for the Stroke Association, said: “Stroke is a leading cause of death and disability, and this research is an important reminder that the food environment around us can influence people's risk. It adds to growing evidence that diets high in ultra-processed foods may increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, including stroke. We still need to understand more about the role of processing itself, but we already know that too much salt, sugar and saturated fat can raise blood pressure and other major risk factors for stroke. People should not be blamed for choices shaped by price, availability and relentless marketing. Government and industry must do more to make healthier food affordable, accessible and easier to choose, so fewer people and families have to live with the impact of stroke.”
