THE ESSENTIAL
- In France, 69% of food products available in supermarkets are ultra-processed, according to a national study from 2021.
- The consumption of ultra-processed foods also promotes the appearance of pathologies such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases or hypertension.
Even thougha third of our plates is composed of ultra-processed foods in France, there are countless studies revealing their harmful impact on the Mental Health and the cognitive development – not to mention cardiovascular health.
Published in the journal Public Health Nutritionnew work confirms that excessive consumption of these industrial products increases the risk of suffering from mental disorders, such as anxiety or depression.
More than 10,000 volunteers in the study
To reach this conclusion, researchers from the Faculty of Medicine at Florida Atlantic University in the United States compiled data from a representative sample of the American population. The aim was to find out if people who consume ultra-processed products had adverse mental health symptoms. They thus measured the “mild depression”number of “days of poor mental health” or the number of “anxiety days” in more than 10,359 adults.
Sugars, saturated fats, salt…
As a result, people who follow industrial junk food (pfrozen izzas, canned soups, fried meats, biscuits, crisps, sodas, flavored cereals, etc.) present higher rates of mild depression or anxiety days than the rest of the participants. Conversely, they are less likely to have “zero day” poor mental health or anxiety.
“Ultra-processing foods depletes their nutritional value and also increases the calorie count, as ultra-processed foods tend to be high in added sugar, saturated fat and salt, while they are low in protein. , fiber, vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals”explained Eric Hecht, one of the authors of the research, in a communiqué.
As a reminder, the consumption of ultra-processed foods promotes the appearance of pathologies such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases or hypertension.
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