Ultraprocessed Diet May Raise Type 2 Diabetes Risk

Consuming a diet high in ultraprocessed foods may be associated with the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to new findings.

Researchers arrived at their conclusion after performing a large observational prospective study that included participants aged 18 years or older from the 2009-2019 French NutriNet-Santé Prospective Cohort (N = 104,707).

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Repeated 24-hour dietary records were used to collect dietary intake data, with an average of 5.7 records collected per participant. Dietary records were designed to assess participants' usual consumption of more than 3500 different food items, and were categorized based on their degree of processing using the NOVA classification system.

The results of the study indicated that the absolute rate of type 2 diabetes among the highest consumers of ultraprocessed foods was 166 per 100,000 person years compared with 113 per 100,000 person-years among the lowest consumers of ultraprocessed foods.

Ultimately, the researchers concluded that ultraprocessed food consumption was associated with increased type 2 diabetes risk, with a multi-adjusted hazard ratio (HR) of 1.15 for an absolute increment of 10 in the percentage of ultraprocessed foods in the diet. This finding remained statistically significant even after adjustment for various markers of nutritional diet quality, other metabolic comorbidities (HR 1.13), and weight change (HR 1.13).

Furthermore, findings indicated that the absolute amount of ultraprocessed food consumption, measured in grams per day, was consistently associated with risk of type 2 diabetes, even after adjustment for consumption of unprocessed or minimally processed foods (HR 1.05 for a 100 g-per-day increase).

“Even though these results need to be confirmed in other populations and settings, they provide evidence to support efforts by public health authorities to recommend limiting UPF consumption,” the authors of the study wrote.

—Christina Vogt

Reference:
Srour B, Fezeu LK, Kesse-Guyot E, et al. Ultraprocessed food consumption and risk of type 2 diabetes among participants of the NutriNet-Santé Prospective Cohort [Published online December 16, 2019]. JAMA Intern Med. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2019.5942.