Ultra-processed foods 'linked to cancer'

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-43064290

Ultra-processed foods 'linked to cancer'

By James Gallagher
Health and science correspondent

9 hours ago

A link between highly processed foods and cancer has been suggested by French researchers. They classified foods including cakes, chicken nuggets and mass-produced bread as "ultra-processed". A study of 105,000 people hinted the more of such foods people ate, the greater their risk of cancer.

A lot of caution is being expressed about the study, but experts said a healthy diet is best.

What counts as ultra-processed
◾Mass-produced packaged breads and buns
◾Sweet or savoury packaged snacks including crisps
◾Chocolate bars and sweets
◾Sodas and sweetened drinks
◾Meatballs, poultry and fish nuggets
◾Instant noodles and soups
◾Frozen or shelf-life ready meals
◾Foods made mostly or entirely from sugar, oils and fats

Diet is already known to affect the risk of cancer. Being overweight is the biggest preventable cause of the disease after smoking and the World Health Organization says processed meat does slightly increase the risk of cancer. But what about ultra-processed foods?

The team - at Universite Sorbonne Paris Cite - used food surveys on two days to work out what people were eating. Those on the study, who were mostly middle-aged women, were followed for an average of five years. The results, in the British Medical Journal, showed that if the proportion of ultra-processed food in the diet increased by 10%, then the number of cancers detected increased by 12%.
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The researchers concluded: "These results suggest that the rapidly increasing consumption of ultra-processed foods may drive an increasing burden of cancer in the next decades." But they said the findings need to "be confirmed by other large-scale" studies and research was needed to establish what could be behind the link.
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