We’ve apparently found the culprit for the obesity epidemic, and it’s “ultra-processed foods”. They’re the plastic-wrapped, industrially-produced foods with long lists of ingredients that apparently make up 60% of the average UK diet.
In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart tuck in to some “hyper-palatable” research on nutrition and health, discuss the main randomised trial in this area, and try (and immediately fail) to read out the whole definition of “ultra-processed foods” in one breath.
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Show Notes
Chris van Tulleken’s Guardian article with a summary of the case against UPFs
The UN document giving all the details on the NOVA classification
Study rating people’s agreement on which foods are in which NOVA category
Stuart’s article on UPFs
Systematic review & meta-analysis on the UPF correlation with premature death
The NIH randomised controlled trial of UPFs versus unprocessed foods
Photos of the meals given in the experiment, from the study’s Appendix
Interesting Twitter discussion with the RCT’s lead author
Page with details on Stephan Guyenet’s book, The Hungry Brain
Credits
The Studies Show is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions.
Episode 6: Ultra-processed foods