Those who eat a lot of highly processed foods have a higher risk of dying earlier, a new study finds. But is that because of the production – or simply because of the ingredients?
Word may have gotten around that frozen pizzas, lemonades or instant soups are not necessarily good for your health. But is it only the ingredients that are the problem, too much salt, sugar, fat – or also the industrial processing? A recent article by an Italian research group suggests the latter: According to this, people who eat highly processed foods frequently die earlier than those who do so less frequently, regardless of the ingredients in the products. This leads to the conclusion that the processing itself could have health-damaging consequences, this is how the team around the epidemiologist Marialaura Bonaccio from the Neuromed Institute in Pozzilli, Italy, recently argued in the specialist journal BMJ.