Ultra-processed foods are associated with accelerated biological aging

Top line:

Consumption of ultra-processed foods (UPF), such as carbonated drinks, processed meats, and packaged sweet or savory snacks, is associated with accelerated biological aging, as measured by 36 blood-based biomarkers. and may be due to factors other than poor nutritional content. .

Methodology:

• Previous studies have reported an association between high intake of UPF and indicators of premature biological aging, such as shortened telomere length, cognitive decline, and frailty, but it is unclear how UPF affects health. To date, little is known about the relationship, including exactly whether it causes harm.
• To examine the association between UPF intake and biological aging, researchers looked at 22,495 participants in the Italian Mori Sani study, recruited between 2005 and 2010 (mean chronological age 55.6 years, female). A cross-sectional analysis was conducted on 52%).
• Food intake was assessed with a food frequency questionnaire covering 188 different foods. Each food was categorized into one of four groups based on the degree of processing, ranging from minimally processed foods such as fruits, vegetables, meat, and fish. UPF.
• UPF intake was determined by body weight using the ratio of UPF to the total weight of food and beverages (g/day), and participants completed a 5-minute trial for each gender according to the proportion of UPF in total food intake. Classified as 1. Diet quality was also assessed using the Mediterranean Diet Score.
• Biological age was calculated using a deep neural network approach based on 36 circulating blood biomarkers, and the mean difference between mean biological age and chronological age was analyzed.

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• The average difference between participants' biological and chronological age was -0.70 years.
• High UPF intake was associated with accelerated biological aging compared with the lowest intake (regression coefficient, 0.34; 95% CI, 0.08-0.61); The average difference between biological age and chronological age for most people was -4.1 years and 1.6 years. minimum and maximum intake, respectively.
• The relationship between UPF consumption and biological aging was nonlinear (P = .049 for nonlinearity). Although this association tended to be stronger in men than in women, this was not statistically significant.
• Including Mediterranean diet score in the model attenuated the association slightly by 9.1%, indicating that deficiencies in nutrient content likely explained a small portion of the underlying mechanism.

actual:

“Our results show that the association between UPF and biological aging can hardly be explained by the poor nutritional composition of these highly processed foods, and that biological aging is primarily a function of the food matrix. “We suggest that this may be influenced by changes in the contact materials, contact materials, and non-nutritive food properties such as neodymium-formed compounds,” the authors write.

sauce:

The study was led by Simona Esposito, Epidemiology and Prevention Research Unit, IRCCS Neuromed, Isernia, Italy. it was Published online in American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Limitations:

The cross-sectional design of the study limited the ability to determine the temporal direction of the association, and the observational nature of the study limited the ability to establish a causal relationship between UPF consumption and biological aging. Ta. The use of self-reported dietary data may have introduced recall bias. The study population was limited to adults from south-central Italy, which may affect the generalizability of the study results.

Disclosure:

The research was developed within a project funded by the Next Generation European Union 'Age-It – Aging Well in Aging Societies' project, a national recovery and resilience plan. The analysis was supported in part by the Italian Ministry of Health. The authors declared no conflicts of interest.

This article was created using several editing tools, including AI as part of the process. A human editor reviewed this content before publication.