I recently reviewed a study by Fang et al. published in BMJ.  The authors had examined the consumption of ultra-processed food (UPF) and all-cause mortality looking for an association.¹ The study is interesting in that the association, which was significant but turned out modest in comparison to what has been previously reported.  Fang’s group analyzed dietary and mortality data collected from the Nurses’ Health Study (1984-2018) and the Health Professional Follow-up Study (1986-2018) and included 74,563 women and 39,501 men with no history of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, or diabetes at baseline.  During the 34 and 31 years of follow up of each cohort, 30,188 women and 18,005 men died. When comparing individuals who ate the least amount of ultra-processed foods in their regular diets with those who ate the most, the participants in the highest quarter of consumption had a 4% higher risk of all-cause mortality (hazard ratio 1.04, 95% confidence interval 1.01 to 1.07).  While statistically significant this seems like hardly any change in risk compared what many of us suspected based on earlier research. 

Participants in the highest quartile of ultra-processed food consumption had 9% higher mortality from causes other than cancer or cardiovascular diseases (1.09, 1.05 to 1.13). The all-cause mortality rates among participants in the lowest vs.  highest quartiles of consumption were 1472 vs. 1536 deaths per 100 000 person years. No association was seen with cancer or cardiovascular mortality and consumption of ultra-processed foods