Digestery
Diet and food › Ultra-Processed Food › Studies

Population study: followed a group

In 114,064 health workers followed 30 years, ready-to-eat meats went with higher death risk

Fang and colleagues · BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2024

Original title: Association of ultra-processed food consumption with all cause and cause specific mortality: population based cohort study.

Under review. A person has not yet checked this summary against the paper. It is written from the PubMed abstract. Until a person checks it, search engines are asked not to list this page.

What the study found

Points to harm

Highest quarter had 4% higher all cause death (hazard ratio 1.04, 95% CI 1.01 to 1.07) and 9% higher death from other causes (1.09). No link with cancer or heart disease death.

The study at a glance

Type of study
Population study: followed a group
Who or what was studied
114,064 people · 74,563 US women and 39,501 US men without cancer, heart disease or diabetes, followed over 30 years
What was tested
Highest vs lowest quarter of ultra-processed food intake and death
What it measured
The question itself: death, heart disease, diabetes and cancer
Who has a stake
No stake declared
One author had a short paid consulting job for the Pan American Health Organization; no food company named.
Journal
BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 2024
Source
PubMed record 38719536. 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: 114,064 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
Not yet. Required before search engines may list this page.

Spot an error? Email a flag with a link to your source, or use the form on the question page.