Your cereal could be killing you.
A new study out of England published Tuesday links ultra-processed foods with heightened risk for developing and dying from cancer.
Researchers at London’s Imperial School of Public Health collected diet data for nearly 200,000 middle-aged adults and monitored their health over roughly 10 years, specifically their risk of developing 34 types of cancer. The medical researchers found that every 10 percentage point increase in the consumption of “ultra-processed” food — defined as items heavily processed during production such as ready-to-eat meals and a majority of breakfast cereals — was associated with a 2 percent rise in cancer incidence and a 6 percent increase in overall cancer mortality. Specifically, a 10-point increase in processed food consumption was associated with a 19 percent increase in ovarian cancer and a whopping 30 percent rise in ovarian cancer deaths.
“This study adds to the growing evidence that ultra-processed foods are likely to negatively impact our health including our risk for cancer,” lead author Dr. Eszter Vamos said in a press release. “Although our study cannot prove causation, other available evidence shows that reducing ultra-processed foods in our diet could provide important health benefits.”
While the study examined U.K. residents, the U.S. and Britain share similar levels of overweight people hooked on processed diets. Processed foods are generally cheaper and more convenient than healthier alternatives and come with high sugar content that makes the packaged products addictive. Prior research from the same team shows that the
