Plant-Based Magic 101: High-Quality Foods Day 5
Eating fewer ultra-processed foods is linked to lower risks of cancer, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke. How many are you eating?
-Plant-Based Magic 101- High Quality Foods
Regardless of your “macros” or how much saturated fat, sodium and sugar you eat, cutting back on ultra-processed foods could have great health benefits. One 2018 study that looked at the eating habits of 100,000 people found that over the next 5 and a half years, the people who ate more ultra-processed foods were also more likely to have a range of chronic conditions compared to people who ate the fewer ultra-processed foods. Check the stats below:
Compared to the bottom 25% of ultra-processed eaters, people who were in the top 25% were about 10% more likely to develop a stroke or cardiovascular disease.
For every 10% increase in amount of ultra-processed eating, people were about 12% more likely to develop overall cancer and about 11% more likely to have breast cancer specifically.
For every 10% increase in amount of ultra-processed eating, people were about 15% more likely to develop type 2 diabetes.
For every 10% increase in amount of ultra-processed eating, people were also about 21% more likely to report symptoms of depression.
These patterns held true even when the researchers took into account the amount of saturated fat, sugar and sodium ate as well as personal and demographic characteristics like health status and income and education level.
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