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Population study: followed a group

Study that followed 19,899 Spanish graduates: ultra-processed food linked to higher death risk

Rico-Campà and colleagues · BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2019

Original title: Association between consumption of ultra-processed foods and all cause mortality: SUN prospective cohort study.

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What the study found

Points to harm

335 deaths. Highest quarter had a hazard ratio of 1.62 (95% CI 1.13 to 2.33). Each extra serving raised all cause death by 18% (1.18).

The study at a glance

Type of study
Population study: followed a group
Who or what was studied
19,899 people · 19,899 Spanish university graduates aged 20 to 91, followed about 10 years
What was tested
Highest vs lowest quarter of ultra-processed food intake and death from any cause
What it measured
The question itself: death, heart disease, diabetes and cancer
Trial registration
NCT02669602
Who has a stake
No stake declared
No competing interests declared.
Journal
BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 2019
Source
PubMed record 31142450. 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: 19,899 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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