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Population study: followed a group

Study that followed 104,980 French adults: ultra-processed food linked to higher cancer risk

Fiolet and colleagues · BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2018

Original title: Consumption of ultra-processed foods and cancer risk: results from NutriNet-Santé prospective cohort.

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What the study found

Points to harm

Each 10% rise in ultra-processed food share was linked to higher overall cancer risk (hazard ratio 1.12) and breast cancer risk (hazard ratio 1.11). Results held after adjusting for diet quality.

The study at a glance

Type of study
Population study: followed a group
Who or what was studied
104,980 people · 104,980 French adults, average age 42.8, followed from 2009 to 2017
What was tested
Higher share of ultra-processed food in the diet and later cancer
What it measured
The question itself: death, heart disease, diabetes and cancer
Trial registration
NCT03335644
Who has a stake
No stake declared
No competing interests declared.
Journal
BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 2018
Source
PubMed record 29444771. This page is based on the abstract only.

How much this study counts

  • –Shows a link, not a cause: people chose their own habits, and other differences between them may explain the result.
  • ✓Followed people over time, so habits were recorded before the outcome happened.
  • ✓Large: 104,980 people.
  • ✓Measured the question itself: death, heart disease, diabetes and cancer.
  • ✓No competing interests declared.
  • •Summarized from the PubMed abstract only. The full paper may hold details the abstract leaves out.

✓ Strength– Limit• Note

These points come from fixed rules about the type of study, its size and length, what it measured, and who has a stake. Every study on Digestery gets the same rules.

Where this study sits

Each dot is one on-topic paper on this question. Steps near the top answer the question more directly.

↑ Stronger evidence

  1. Trials in people: death and chronic disease

    2

    1 no difference, 1 harm

  2. Trials in people: other measures

    3

    1 mixed, 1 no direction, 1 harm

  3. Trials in people: lab tests or safety

    1

    1 mixed

  4. Population studies

    17

    1 mixed, 16 harm

    ↑ This study is the ringed dot

  5. Blood levels and genes

    0

    None among the papers we read.

↓ Weaker evidence

  • Points to benefit
  • Mixed
  • No difference
  • No direction
  • Points to harm

How it fits with the other research

The short answer to “Are ultra-processed foods bad for your health?”

Linked to worse health; cause not proven.

Confidence: low. Based on 38 on-topic papers.

Read the full answer

Of the other 16 papers on the same step: 1 mixed, 15 harm. This one found harm. It agrees with most of them.

Other papers on the same step

See all 38 studies on this question

How this page was made

Label

First read of the abstract
Claude Sonnet
Independent second read
Claude Haiku
Differences settled
The two reads agreed on every checked field. Claude Opus 5.5.
Headline
Claude Sonnet, from the checked study record. A script checked its numbers and wording.
Numbers
Checked against the abstract by a script
“How much this study counts”
Fixed rules, the same for every study
Source check by a person
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