Tag Archives: sweets and desserts

Health

Ultraprocessed foods linked to ovarian and other cancer deaths, study finds

Leave a comment

Editor’s Note: Sign up for CNN’s Eat, But Better: Mediterranean Style. Our eight-part guide shows you a delicious expert-backed eating lifestyle that will boost your health for life.



CNN
 — 

Eating more ultraprocessed foods raises the risk of developing and dying from cancer, especially ovarian cancer, according to a new study of over 197,000 people in the United Kingdom, over half of whom were women.

Overly processed foods include prepackaged soups, sauces, frozen pizza and ready-to-eat meals, as well as hot dogs, sausages, french fries, sodas, store-bought cookies, cakes, candies, doughnuts, ice cream and many more.

“Ultra-processed foods are produced with industrially derived ingredients and often use food additives to adjust colour, flavour, consistency, texture, or extend shelf life,” said first author Dr. Kiara Chang, a National Institute for Health and Care Research fellow at Imperial College London’s School of Public Health, in a statement.

“Our bodies may not react the same way to these ultra-processed ingredients and additives as they do to fresh and nutritious minimally processed foods,” Chang said.

However, people who eat more ultra-processed foods also tend to “drink more fizzy drinks and less tea and coffee, as well as less vegetables and other foods associated with a healthy dietary pattern,” said Duane Mellor, a registered dietitian and senior teaching fellow at Aston Medical School in Birmingham, UK, in an email.

“This could mean that it may not be an effect specifically of the ultra-processed foods themselves, but instead reflect the impact of a lower intake of healthier food,” said Mellor, who was not involved in the study.

The study, published Tuesday in the journal eClinicalMedicine, looked at the association between eating ultraprocessed foods and 34 different types of cancer over a 10-year period.

Researchers examined information on the eating habits of 197,426 people who were part of the UK Biobank, a large biomedical database and research resource that followed residents from 2006 to 2010.

The amount of ultraprocessed foods consumed by people in the study ranged from a low of 9.1% to a high of 41.4% of their diet, the study found.

Eating patterns were then compared with medical records that listed both diagnoses and deaths from cancer.

Each 10% increase in ultraprocessed food consumption was associated with a 2% increase in developing any cancer, and a 19% increased risk for being diagnosed with ovarian cancer, according to a statement issued by Imperial College London.

Deaths from cancers also increased, the study found. For each additional 10% increase in ultraprocessed food consumption, the risk of dying from any cancer increased by 6%, while the risk of dying from ovarian cancer rose by 30%, according to the statement.

“These associations persisted after adjustment for a range of socio-demographic, smoking status, physical activity, and key dietary factors,” the authors wrote.

When it comes to death from cancer among women, ovarian cancer is ranked fifth, “accounting for more deaths than any other cancer of the female reproductive system,” noted the American Cancer Society.

“The findings add to previous studies showing an association between a greater proportion of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) in the diet and a higher risk of obesity, heart attacks, stroke, and type 2 diabetes,” said Simon Steenson, a nutrition scientist at the British Nutrition Foundation, a charity partially supported by food producers and manufacturers. Steenson was not involved in the new study.

“However, an important limitation of these previous studies and the new analysis published today is that the findings are observational and so do not provide evidence of a clear causal link between UPFs and cancer, or the risk of other diseases,” Steenson said in an email.

People who ate the most ultraprocessed foods “were younger and less likely to have a family history of cancer,” Chang and her colleagues wrote.

High consumers of ultraprocessed foods were less likely to do physical activity and more likely to be classified as obese. These people were also likely to have lower household incomes and education and live in the most underprivileged communities, the study found.

“This study adds to the growing evidence that ultra-processed foods are likely to negatively impact our health including our risk for cancer,” said Dr. Eszter Vamos, the study’s lead author and a clinical senior lecturer at Imperial College London’s School of Public Health in a statement.

This latest research is not the first to show an association between a high intake of ultraprocessed foods and cancer.

A 2022 study examined the diets of over 200,000 men and women in the United States for up to 28 years and found a link between ultraprocessed foods and colorectal cancer — the third most diagnosed cancer in the United States — in men, but not women.

And there are “literally hundreds of studies (that) link ultraprocessed foods to obesity, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and overall mortality,” Marion Nestle, the Paulette Goddard professor emerita of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University told CNN previously.

While the new UK-based study cannot prove causation, only an association, “other available evidence shows that reducing ultra-processed foods in our diet could provide important health benefits,” Vamos said.

“Further research is needed to confirm these findings and understand the best public health strategies to reduce the widespread presence and harms of ultra-processed foods in our diet,” she added.

Read original article here

Health

Ultraprocessed food may contribute to dementia, study says

Leave a comment

Editor’s Note: Sign up for CNN’s Eat, But Better: Mediterranean Style. Our eight-part guide shows you a delicious expert-backed eating lifestyle that will boost your health for life.



CNN
 — 

We all eat them — ultraprocessed foods such as frozen pizza and ready-to-eat meals make our busy lives much easier. Besides, they are just darn tasty — who isn’t susceptible to hot dogs, sausages, burgers, french fries, sodas, cookies, cakes, candy, doughnuts and ice cream, to name just a few?

If more than 20% of your daily calorie intake is ultraprocessed foods, however, you may be raising your risk for cognitive decline, a new study found.

That amount would equal about 400 calories a day in a 2,000-calories-a-day diet. For comparison, a small order of fries and regular cheeseburger from McDonald’s contains a total of 530 calories.

The part of the brain involved in executive functioning — the ability to process information and make decisions — is especially hard hit, according to the study published Monday in JAMA Neurology.

Men and women in the study who ate the most ultraprocessed foods had a 25% faster rate of executive function decline and a 28% faster rate of overall cognitive impairment compared with those who ate the least amount of overly processed food.

“While this is a study of association, not designed to prove cause and effect, there are a number or elements to fortify the proposition that some acceleration in cognitive decay may be attributed to ultraprocessed foods,” said Dr. David Katz, a specialist in preventive and lifestyle medicine and nutrition, who was not involved in the study.

“The sample size is substantial, and the follow-up extensive. While short of proof, this is robust enough that we should conclude ultraprocessed foods are probably bad for our brains.”

There was an interesting twist, however. If the quality of the overall diet was high — meaning the person also ate a lot of unprocessed, whole fruits and veggies, whole grains and healthy sources of protein — the association between ultraprocessed foods and cognitive decline disappeared, Katz said.

“Ultraprocessed foods drag diet quality down, and thus their concentration in the diet is an indicator of poor diet quality in most cases,” Katz said. “Atypical as it seems, apparently some of the participants managed it. And when diet quality was high, the observed association between ultraprocessed foods and brain function abated.”

The study followed over 10,000 Brazilians for up to 10 years. Just over half of the study participants were women, White or college educated, while the average age was 51.

Cognitive testing, which included immediate and delayed word recall, word recognition and verbal fluency, was performed at the beginning and end of the study, and participants were asked about their diet.

“In Brazil, ultraprocessed foods make up 25% to 30% of total calorie intake. We have McDonald’s, Burger King, and we eat a lot of chocolate and white bread. It’s not very different, unfortunately, from many other Western countries,” coauthor Dr. Claudia Suemoto, an assistant professor in the division of geriatrics at the University of São Paulo Medical School, told CNN when the study abstract was released in August.

“Fifty-eight percent of the calories consumed by United States citizens, 56.8% of the calories consumed by British citizens, and 48% of the calories consumed by Canadians come from ultraprocessed foods,” Suemoto said.

Ultraprocessed foods are defined as “industrial formulations of food substances (oils, fats, sugars, starch, and protein isolates) that contain little or no whole foods and typically include flavorings, colorings, emulsifiers, and other cosmetic additives,” according to the study.

Those in the study who ate the most ultraprocessed foods were “more likely to be younger, women, White, had higher education and income, and were more likely to have never smoked, and less likely to be current alcohol consumers,” the study found.

In addition to the impact on cognition, ultraprocessed foods are already known to raise the risk of obesity, heart and circulation problems, diabetes, cancer and a shorter life span.

“Ultraprocessed foods in general are bad for every part of us,” said Katz, president and founder of the nonprofit True Health Initiative, a global coalition of experts dedicated to evidence-based lifestyle medicine.

Ultaprocessed foods are usually high in sugar, salt and fat, all of which promote inflammation throughout the body, which is “perhaps the most major threat to healthy aging in the body and brain,” said Dr. Rudy Tanzi, professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and director of the genetics and aging research unit at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He was not involved in the study.

“Meanwhile, since they are convenient as a quick meal, they also replace eating food that is high in plant fiber that is important for maintaining the health and balance of the trillions of bacteria in your gut microbiome,” Tanzi added, “which is particularly important for brain health and reducing risk of age-related brain diseases like Alzheimer’s disease.”

How can you keep this from happening to you? If you include ultraprocessed foods in your diet, try to counter these by also eating high-quality, whole foods such as fruits, vegetables and whole grains.

“The conclusion suggested here is that ultraprocessed foods are, indeed, an important ‘ingredient,’ but the exposure that should be the focus of public health efforts is overall diet quality,” Katz said.

One easy way to ensure diet quality is to cook and prepare your food from scratch, Suemoto said.

“We say we don’t have time, but it really doesn’t take that much time,” Suemoto said.

“And it’s worth it because you’re going to protect your heart and guard your brain from dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. That’s the take-home message: Stop buying things that are superprocessed.”

Read original article here

Business

Why Costco, Trader Joe’s stopped selling your favorites

Leave a comment


New York
CNN Business
 — 

Chances are, you’ve been there: You head to Trader Joe’s to buy caramel popcorn, churro bites and roasted gorgonzola crackers, or to Costco for its Kirkland Signature mini peanut butter cups and take-and-bake pizza.

But when you get to the store, your favorite treats aren’t on the shelf. And, to your horror, you learn they’re not coming back.

They’ve been discontinued.

It’s one of the most disappointing experiences as a grocery shopper. Why a beloved product has disappeared ranks as one of the most common questions customers ask stores. Fans run social media accounts dedicated to tracking discontinued products at Trader Joe’s, and others blog about long-lost items at Costco.

“We understand that it can be disappointing — devastating, even,” Trader Joe’s says on its “discontinued product feedback” contact page for customers.

There are several reasons Trader Joe’s, Costco

(COST) and other stores suddenly stop selling customer favorites.

Sometimes products are seasonal, or a manufacturer always planned to make them for a limited time. Also, for stores like Costco and Trader Joe’s, discontinuing items can reinforce the treasure hunt-like appeal of these stores.

But more often, other strategies are at play.

One major factor: It’s difficult to get shelf space inside Trader Joe’s and Costco and stay there. These companies sell a limited number of items — only the products in highest demand from customers.

That’s quite a different strategy from supermarkets, as well as the likes of Walmart

(WMT) and Amazon

(AMZN), which offer a wide array of foods and brands. Costco, for example, sells around 4,000 different products at a given time. Traditional supermarkets typically sell 40,000.

Both companies’ ability to keep prices below most of their competitors hinges on turning over high volumes of top-selling merchandise every minute, every day.

If an item isn’t selling fast enough on the shelf at Trader Joe’s or is collecting dust at Costco warehouses, the companies need to switch to something else that customers will snap up.

“If you don’t have high volume or growing volume, the costs of producing and handling a slow-selling product are such that it doesn’t make business sense,” Trader Joe’s vice president of marketing Matt Sloan said in a company podcast earlier this year.

Other times, it’s the product itself: Companies will pull items if suppliers raise the price too much or the quality drops.

“Costco would rather not sell an item than sell it at a price that’s too high,” said Chuck Howard, an assistant professor of marketing at Texas A&M’s Mays Business School. “It would be off-brand for them to be selling things that consumers think would be too expensive.”

For example, about five years ago Costco replaced a $27 10-pound boneless, skinless frozen chicken breast from Perdue with a $21.99 Wayne Farms version, said Marcus Walker, an assistant buyer of frozen foods at Costco from 2005 to 2020.

Items that are cheaper at other stores are also prime to eliminate.

Costco wants its products to be the lowest-priced option. It pulled Hot Pockets because it wasn’t able to match Sam’s Club prices on the product, Walker said.

Costco’s teams buy their suppliers’ products at competitors’ stores and test them to compare the quality against Costco’s. If they find an item tastes better somewhere else, they’ll ask the supplier to improve it for Costco, Walker said — and if that doesn’t happen, Costco will look to replace it.

Another issue, which the pandemic underscored, is the stability of product supply. If a manufacturer can’t produce enough of an item, the companies will stop selling it and replace it with something they can consistently keep on shelves.

In 2020 and 2021, with demand sky-high from customers stocking up on groceries during the pandemic, manufacturers halted production of many secondary products to make only their highest-demand items. And even as demand eased this year and factories returned to running at more normal capacity, manufacturers still aren’t making as wide a variety of items as they did before the pandemic.

Hormel Foods

(HRL), the maker of Skippy and Spam, and Mondelez

(MDLZ),, which owns brands like Oreo, are among the companies that have said recently they are reducing the number of products they’re selling to focus on their top-performing ones.

Angela Ackerman, who runs the Instagram account @Costcoguide with more than 230,000 followers, said Costco fans often ask her why they can’t find Costco’s dried dark chocolate mangoes in particular.

“They fall in love with something and want to see it again,” she said.

Scarcity can fuel sales, as Ackerman knows. When she sees a notice at Costco that it will no longer sell a prized item, she buys more before it runs out.”If I know it’s going to be gone, I stock up.”



Read original article here