These foods can cause cancer, stop eating now!

NewsBharati    19-Feb-2018
Total Views |

London, February 19: A joint study by researchers from France and Brazil has revealed that 'ultra-processed foods ' may drive an increasing burden of cancer in the next decades. These foods include packaged baked goods, snacks, fizzy drinks, sugary cereals, ready meals and reconstituted meat products.

The study published in The British Medical Journal has reconfirmed the association and the risk of getting cancer from ultra-processed foods. Also, the foods contain high levels of sugar, fat and salt, and that they lack vitamins and fiber. 

Titled, “Consumption of ultra-processed foods and cancer risk”, the research reached 1,04,980 participants aged at least 18 years and found that a 10% increase in the proportion of ultra-processed foods in the diet was associated with a significant increase of greater than 10% in risks of overall and breast cancer.

The researchers have said further studies are critical to better understand the relative effect of the various dimensions of processing nutritional composition, food additives, contact materials, and neo-formed contaminants in their association with cancer risk.

“Therefore, reaching a balanced and diversified diet should be considered one of the most important modifiable risk factors in the primary prevention of cancer. At the same time, during the past decades, diets in many countries have shifted towards a dramatic increase in consumption of ultra-processed foods.

After undergoing multiple physical, biological, and chemical processes, these food products are conceived to be microbiologically safe, convenient and highly palatable. Several surveys assessing individual food intake, household food expenses, or supermarket sales have suggested that ultra-processed food products contribute between 25% and 50% of total daily energy intake,” the research notes.

Authors note with concern that several characteristics of ultra-processed foods may be involved in causing disease, particularly cancer.

Firstly, ultra-processed foods often have a higher content of total fat, saturated fat, and added sugar and salt, along with a lower fibre and vitamin density.

“Beyond nutritional composition, neo-formed contaminants some of which have carcinogenic properties (such as acrylamide, heterocyclic amines, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) are present in heat-treated processed foods as a result of Maillard reaction.”

Secondly, the packaging of ultra-processed foods may contain some materials in contact with food for which carcinogenic and endocrine disruptor properties have been postulated, such as bisphenol. Finally, ultra-processed foods contain authorised but controversial food additives such as sodium nitrite in processed meat or titanium dioxide for which carcinogenicity has been suggested in animal or cellular models, authors argue.