Now new findings suggest that people who eat too many highly processed foods face a higher chance of developing type 2 diabetes.
Lowering Diabetes Risks Through Healthier Choices
For the analysis, Dicken and his collaborators looked at ultraprocessed food consumption and health outcomes for more than 300,000 people from eight European countries over nearly 11 years on average. During that time, more than 14,000 people developed type 2 diabetes.
Using scientific modeling, however, the authors estimated that risk could be lowered 14 percent by replacing 10 percent of ultraprocessed foods in a diet with unprocessed or minimally processed foods such as eggs, milk, and fruit, used along with cooking ingredients like salt, butter, and oil.
Even replacing ultraprocessed foods with some processed alternatives — those not overly loaded with sugar, oils, fats, coloring, flavor enhancers, and other additives — could make a difference in terms of diabetes risk.
Swapping out 10 percent of ultraprocessed foods for processed foods — such as freshly-made cheeses, tinned fish like sardines and tuna, and vegetables preserved in salt or vinegar — slashed diabetes risk by as much as 18 percent.
Some Ultraprocessed Foods May Be Worse for You Than Others
They identified the following as the highest-risk:
Avoiding these foods in particular may lower the risk of poor health, the study authors wrote.
In the top 25 percent of ultraprocessed food consumers in the study, sweetened beverages alone accounted for nearly 40 percent of ultraprocessed intake — and 9 percent of overall diet.
“Sugar-sweetened beverages are already known to increase high blood sugar, prediabetes, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome,” says Lindsay Malone, RD, chair of the nutrition department at Case Western Reserve University’s School of Medicine in Cleveland. “They cause a surge in blood sugar that is hard for the body to keep up with, and artificial sweeteners alter gut bacteria and can increase sweet cravings.”
On the other hand, ultraprocessed breads, biscuits, and breakfast cereals; sweets and desserts; and plant-based alternatives were associated with a lower incidence of type 2 diabetes, according to the paper.
“Based on our results, I think we should treat [breads and cereals] differently from savory snacks or sugary drinks, in terms of the dietary advice we provide,” said senior study author Rachel Batterham, PhD, a professor of obesity, diabetes, and endocrinology at the University of College London’s division of medicine, in the press release.
Malone, who was not involved in the research, called this particular finding “a bit perplexing,” and expected to see the opposite.
Ajaykumar D. Rao, MD, chief of the section of endocrinology, diabetes, and metabolism at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University in Philadelphia, added that more in-depth scientific investigation is needed to understand these associations.
“Perhaps individuals who intake [breads and cereals] have other unmeasured factors that lead to less risk for diabetes,” says Dr. Rao, who was not involved in the research. “I think it is important to note that this is an association study and [it’s] hard to understand the biologic causation.”
Putting More Thought Into Food Selections
Although these foods can be cheap, convenient, and tasty, the AHA warns that they may have lots of refined carbohydrates, saturated fats, and salt, and they are usually loaded with calories.
Malone urges consumers to take the extra effort and choose healthier options when shopping.
“Look for single-ingredient foods at the grocery store,” she says. “For example, instead of buying flavored instant oatmeal, switch to whole rolled oats. Instead of canned peaches in juice or syrup, choose frozen peaches where the only ingredient is peaches. Instead of peanut butter made with salt, sugar, and oil, switch to natural peanut butter that has only peanuts.”
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