Ultra-processed foods can speed up biological aging, new study shows

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Body clock health concept as a 3D illustration. (Photo: iStock)

Ultra-processed foods can accelerate aging and the decline of your body’s health, even if you generally eat healthy foods, say Italian researchers in a new report based on the largest population study of its kind in Europe.

And it’s not necessarily for the reason you might think: It may be due more to the potentially harmful ways these foods are highly processed and packaged by industry than their poor nutritional content. Making ultra-processed food typically involves high-temperature cooking, among other processes, that can expose our bodies to toxic chemicals and plastics.

“[A] high consumption of ultra-processed foods not only has a negative impact on health in general, but could also accelerate aging itself, suggesting a connection that goes beyond the poor nutritional quality of these foods,” says first author Simona Esposito, a researcher at the Scientific Institute for Research, Hospitalization and Health Care (IRCCS) Neuromed in Pozzilli, which conducted the study with the Libera Università Mediterranea (LUM) University of Casamassima.

The report, published today [Nov. 6, 2024] in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, comes at a time of increased interest in ways to delay or reverse aging. It also comes amid a growing body of scientific evidence that ultra-processed foods (UPFs) put individuals at greater risk for chronic health conditions, like Type II diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and erode our body’s ability to voluntarily control how much and how often we consume them.

Unlike minimally processed, naturally occurring foods, ultra-processed foods are designed by industry to contain artificially high levels of rapidly absorbed refined carbohydrates (like sugar and white flour), salt, and unhealthy fats, along with other additives. Some UPFs can be as addictive as cigarettes, alcohol, and cocaine, studies have shown. 

“Neurologically speaking, highly processed foods can act like a traditional addictive drug,” says Haley Krupa, the lead author of a recent study on food addiction [September 2024]. “[They] can stimulate reward pathways in the brain that parallel those triggered by drug use, increasing the risk of dependency.”

Chronological versus biological aging

While actual (chronological) age starts at your date of birth, biological age is a kind of internal “clock” that reflects the actual health status of your body, including your organs and systems. In other words, you may have recently celebrated your 36th birthday, but your body functions as if you are 50.

Among many other impacts, including early death, previous studies have shown high consumption of ultra-processed foods is associated with lower indicators of healthy aging, such as:

The latest study is believed to be the first to examine the association of UPF consumption and markers of biological aging. Researchers analyzed 36 circulating blood biomarkers among nearly 22,500 middle-aged and elderly Italians (male and female). Participants were recruited from the Moli-sani Study.

The researchers also assessed diet quality and estimated participants’ consumption of ultra-processed foods over the previous year, based on a food frequency questionnaire with 248 questions about 188 different food items. (Limitations of the study may include the potential for participants to accurately recall items and assess portion size, researchers noted, though they excluded participants with “implausible” food intakes and adjustments.) The most popular UPFs among the cohort were processed meat (17.6%), cakes/pies/pastries (14.2%), and fruit drinks (10.9%).

“Our results showed that the UPFs-biological aging association was weakly explained by the poor nutritional composition of these highly processed foods, suggesting that biological aging could be mainly influenced by nonnutrient food [characteristics],” the researchers say.

Those characteristics include the potential of industrial UPF processing to produce:

Other impacts may occur, too. Industrial processing deconstructs the natural architecture of food and adds other substances. That may affect how our bodies absorb and respond to what we consume, including how your body uses and stores blood sugars (glucose), the researchers say. 

“Modifications to the physical structure of the food matrix during processing, as well as usage of food additives, including emulsifiers and nonnutritive sweeteners, may alter gut microbiota composition and function, and impair glucose tolerance,” they say. “And this may trigger inflammatory processes, and increase susceptibility to age-related chronic diseases.”

References

Esposito S, Gialluisi A, Di Castelnuovo A, et al. Ultra-processed food consumption is associated with the acceleration of biological aging in the Moli-sani Study. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Published online November 2024. doi:10.1016/j.ajcnut.2024.10.006

Krupa H, Gearhardt AN, Lewandowski A, Avena NM. Food Addiction. Brain Sciences. 2024;14(10):952. doi:10.3390/brainsci14100952

Alonso-Pedrero L, Ojeda-Rodríguez A, Martínez-González MA, Zalba G, Bes-Rastrollo M, Marti A. Ultra-processed food consumption and the risk of short telomeres in an elderly population of the Seguimiento Universidad de Navarra (SUN) Project. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 2020;111(6):1259-1266. doi:10.1093/ajcn/nqaa075

Gearhardt, A. N., DiFeliceantonio, A. G. (2023). Highly processed foods can be considered addictive substances based on established scientific criteria. Addiction 2023;118(4): 589-598. doi:10.1111/add.16065

Hamczyk MR, Nevado RM, Barettino A, Fuster V, Andrés V. Biological versus chronological aging. Journal of the American College of Cardiology. 2020;75(8):919-930. doi:10.1016/j.jacc.2019.11.062

Iacoviello L, Bonanni A, Costanzo S, et al. The Moli-Sani project, a randomized, prospective cohort study in the Molise region in Italy; design, rationale and objectives. Italian Journal of Public Health. May 2024.

Martínez Steele E, Buckley JP, Monteiro CA. Ultra-processed food consumption and exposure to acrylamide in a nationally representative sample of the US population aged 6 years and older. Preventive Medicine. 2023;174:107598. doi:10.1016/j.ypmed.2023.107598

Srour B, Kordahi MC, Bonazzi E, Deschasaux-Tanguy M, Touvier M, Chassaing B. Ultra-processed foods and human health: from epidemiological evidence to mechanistic insights. The Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology. 2022;7(12):1128-1140. doi:10.1016/s2468-1253(22)00169-8