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Scientists are learning why ultra-processed foods are bad

economist.com

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Re: Scientists are learning why ultra-processed foods are bad

#191

Post by dekhn »

atombender wrote: post #144
cynicalpeace wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

40-60% of nutritional studies cannot be replicated. You can't reliably draw any conclusions from them. You have to use common sense and rules of thumb.

But some are better than others. The NIH is currently running a study (N=36, expected to complete in 2025) on ultra-processed foods where the participants are sequested as inpatients at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center's research facility and strictly monitored 24/7. They can't leave without a chaperone that ensures they're not cheating. They've done prior studies such as this one [2] (N=20) in 2019.…

Even though I'm a scientist and thoroughly trained in statistics, the idea that we can to sequester 36 people and monitor diet 24/7 and made general conclusions doesn't sound completely right to me. Partly in the technical sense and partly in the "why do the folks working on human health get away with sample sizes that would be laughed about in any other field?"

Re: Scientists are learning why ultra-processed foods are bad

#192

Post by nitwit005 »

snapcaster wrote: post #174
nitwit005 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smokers are often experts on why cigarettes are bad for you.

I don't meet smokers arguing smoking isn't actually bad though...

I have. You just haven't run into someone delusional enough. It's apparently a lie concocted by white people.

Re: Scientists are learning why ultra-processed foods are bad

#193

Post by rpdillon »

raverbashing wrote: post #116
Kirby64 wrote: post #17

From the article: > Even if the results show conclusively that processing, and not just nutrients, leads to poor health, policymakers will face another difficulty: the definition of upfs remains woolly. The Nova classification has no tolerance at all for artificial ingredients. The mere presence of a chemical additive classifies a food as a upf, regardless of the amount. This can lead to confusing health outcomes—a r…

I agree. Classification of UPFs seems more to be a "religious purity" discussion than actuall classification of good/bad Univariable classifications are usually not helpful, and this seems to just confirm it. In the same way "sugar free" or "fat free" make little sense

It's like the 'screen time' of the food industry.

Re: Scientists are learning why ultra-processed foods are bad

#194

Post by heisenbit »

resoluteteeth wrote: post #156
snapcaster wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree it leaves a lot to be desired but i wouldn't say it's totally worthless. It's clearly identifying something and even a poorly understood adherence to avoiding UPFs would likely make the average person healthier. Overall though we obviously need to come up with better terms for this

> avoiding UPFs would likely make the average person healthier UPFs are defined in a way where you could replace them with essentially identical foods that only count as "processed" by swapping out a couple ingredients with nutritionally identical ingredients (e.g. replace HFCS with sucrose). The research on UPFs doesn't actually compare ultra-processed food with similar "processed" foods. So if you replace a pie con…

> there is some researching showing that fructose can be harmful but the glucose/fructose content of HFCS isn't significantly different from sucrose

Indeed a lot of people ignore this. Still it is worth pointing out that

a) a higher glucose content due to sucrose based sweetness helps absorbing fructose in a home-made cake.

b) the ultra-processed cake likely got added a fair share of sugar alcohols (keeping it moist) which for a single digit percentage but still significant portion of the population interferes with fructose absorption leading to fermentation in the gut.

c) the longer and cold storage of the industrial cake will lead to an increase of recombined starch which is harder to digest.

(a, b due to fructose transport from gut less efficient than for glucose and the transport part relying on presence of glucose. Some people suffer from fructose mal-absorption where the main transport mechanism is not working and the backup mechanism can be blocked by sugar alcohols)

Re: Scientists are learning why ultra-processed foods are bad

#195

Post by atombender »

dekhn wrote: post #191
atombender wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But some are better than others. The NIH is currently running a study (N=36, expected to complete in 2025) on ultra-processed foods where the participants are sequested as inpatients at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center's research facility and strictly monitored 24/7. They can't leave without a chaperone that ensures they're not cheating. They've done prior studies such as this one [2] (N=20) in 2019.…

Even though I'm a scientist and thoroughly trained in statistics, the idea that we can to sequester 36 people and monitor diet 24/7 and made general conclusions doesn't sound completely right to me. Partly in the technical sense and partly in the "why do the folks working on human health get away with sample sizes that would be laughed about in any other field?"

I don't know enough about medical statistics to say, but I often see small sample sizes in studies where the effect size is expected to be high. That may be the case here.

Re: Scientists are learning why ultra-processed foods are bad

#196

Post by robocat »

formerlurker wrote: post #121
makeitdouble wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan isn't special IMHO, but overweight rate is on the low side. Now, trying to understand why is can of worm (social pressure and bullying probably plays a role for instance, which have other adverse effects possibly worse than just being overweight)

I went to Japan recently and one of the most striking things to me was how easy it was to walk to places. Their infrastructure astounded me because it was set up with people in mind and not car companies.

I think this can be seen in cities with walking-to-work culture (often metro/underground).

Although I've wondered if cause is enforced exercise or just selection (people that move to a large city to work have a demographic).

Re: Scientists are learning why ultra-processed foods are bad

#197

Post by tugdual »

Kirby64 wrote: post #17

From the article: > Even if the results show conclusively that processing, and not just nutrients, leads to poor health, policymakers will face another difficulty: the definition of upfs remains woolly. The Nova classification has no tolerance at all for artificial ingredients. The mere presence of a chemical additive classifies a food as a upf, regardless of the amount. This can lead to confusing health outcomes—a r…

When Carlos Monteiro decided to operationalize UPFs by giving them a definition (laymans terms: UPF is one ingredient you wouldn't find in a traditional kitchen and wrapped in plastic) Kevin Hall from the US had the same reaction as you and decided to make a multi-million dollar experiment to disprove the definition proposed by Dr. Monteiro. Result: People who ate unprocessed lost weight, and the other group gained weight. (Groups were exchanged after 2 weeks and saw similar effects).

Re: Scientists are learning why ultra-processed foods are bad

#198

Post by standardUser »

digging wrote: post #177
standardUser wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't make any sense. If I have a bowl of oatmeal, and I sprinkle sugar on top, it does not magically become ultra-processed.

Well if the sugar is ultra-processed, yes it does, doesn't it?

No, it does not, since ultra-processed, though not a strictly defined term, does not include household ingredients like granulated sugar or brown sugar. If you happen to have a jar of HFCS in your cabinet then that would quality.

Re: Scientists are learning why ultra-processed foods are bad

#199

Post by code_biologist »

AJ007 wrote: post #54

Who made up this word? Before 2022 it more or less doesn't exist (per Google Trends.)

The phrase as originally coined is from the Nova classification system, proposed in 2009 by researchers at the University of São Paulo, Brazil: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_classification
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