Many pathologies related to their ingestion. The National Agency for Food, Environmental and Labor Health Safety (ANSES) alerts once again on the risks linked to the consumption of ultra-transformed food (AUT). The body, which is not at its first report on the subject, this time relied on the Nova classification, established by Brazilian researchers.
As the ANSES explains In a research summary published on its website this Thursday, January 30, This framework characterizes food ultra-transformed by several properties. The “transformation processes and the addition of so -called cosmetic additives” (preservatives, dyes, etc.) or “substances rarely used when preparing meals at home” are the criteria that make it possible to qualify the degree of transformation of a produced on this classification scale.
Obesity, diabetes, breast cancer, cardiovascular diseases …
The French agency explains that it has chosen to use the framework of the Nova classification for lack of a “consensual definition” of the concept of ultra-transformed food within the scientific community. To conduct the most complete analysis possible, she therefore decided to conduct “a systematic review of scientific studies published on this subject”. Thus, at the end of its research, ANSES was able to establish some conclusions, “with a weight of evidence” which remains “weak” however.
The consumption of ultra-transformed food is therefore “associated with a higher risk of mortality and chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, overweight, obesity, cardioneurovascular diseases, breast cancer and colorectal cancer” . Researchers have been alerting to the harmful consequences of the properties of products in this category for several years. Cereals for breakfast, prepared dishes, industrial brioches … The problem concerns a very wide palette of foodstuffs. L’Express had also devoted a whole file to this health issue over a year ago, just to find here.
With this new analysis, ANSES also formulates two new hypotheses to “explain the potential link between the consumption of so-called ultra-transformed and health” foods “. On the one hand, she suggests that the “circumstances of consumption” of these products, often swallowed quickly, in transport or in front of a screen, can play a role in the “excessive food” by certain regulars of this type food. “The addition of additives” in these foods, aimed at making them “practical and appetizing”, could also promote overconsumption of products already unfavorable to health.
Another thesis put forward by this study: the creation of new substances, qualified as “neoflemed”, during the processes of transformation of these products. “However, some are potentially harmful and can cause interactions,” points out the ANSES. The agency encourages more detailed research on the issue of ultra-transformed foods and its two hypotheses to “better characterize the link between transformation processes and health effects, and to guide public policies in food and nutrition”.
Several previous alerts
Some reports have already been conducted on more precise aspects of the risks linked to the addition of additives to food sold in supermarkets. Several French research centers, including Inserm and INRAE, have thus communicated disturbing results in recent years about the dangers inherent in the presence of emulsifiers in sauces, cookies or other industrial fats.
As early as 2023, based on the data transmitted by more than 90,000 people, the researchers underlined a relationship between a large consumption of products containing this kind of substance and a higher probability of contracting cardiovascular or coronary disease. A few months later, the role of emulsifiers in facilitating the development of cancers had also been pointed out. However, conclusions that still remain to be supported through other “epidemiological and experimental” studies, they said.