Overeating highly processed foods or increasing cancer risk

Too much highly processed food may increase the risk of cancer, especially breast cancer, according to a study published in the British Medical Journal by French researchers.

According to the degree of processing from low to high, food can be divided into unprocessed food, cooking ingredients such as sugar, salt and butter, processed food made from the combination of the two kinds of food and highly processed food containing industrial additives used to change the sensory properties of food. People often eat chocolate, biscuits, flavoring beverages, frozen foods and so on, all belong to the category of highly processed foods. Previous studies have shown that eating highly processed foods can lead to cardiovascular metabolic disorders, obesity, hypertension and hyperlipidemia, but this is the first study to directly explore the relationship between highly processed foods and cancer risk. From 2009 to 2017, researchers from the French National Institute of Health and Medical Sciences and the French National Institute of Agriculture tracked the dietary and health status of 105,000 adults with an average age of nearly 43 years. During this period, 2228 cancer cases were reported among the investigators, 739 of which were breast cancer.

Considering factors such as age, smoking and drinking status, exercise habits, education level and social demography, the researchers finally concluded that if the proportion of highly processed foods in the daily diet increased by 10%, the overall risk of cancer would increase by 12%.

Researchers said that highly processed foods tend to contain a high proportion of saturation. Fat, sugar and salt, while dietary fiber, vitamins and other trace elements are low, so the overall nutritional value is not high. Eating too much of this kind of food can easily lead to weight gain or even obesity, and obesity has been proven to be an important factor in raising the risk of cancer. Food processing or frying, barbecuing and other cooking processes are also very prone to produce new pollutants, thus causing cancer.

Researchers emphasized that the current research results still need to be further confirmed through larger and more specific studies for different populations, so as to better explain the relationship between different risk factors such as nutritional composition, additives, packaging and new pollutants of highly processed foods and cancer. Above: Egypt replaces China as the biggest importer of Russian food. Next: Domestic milk powder brand greatly improves this year's performance target.