Study shows weak link between ultraprocessed foods and type 2 diabetes

Key takeaways:

• There was a modest but insignificant association between high UPF intake and risk for type 2 diabetes.
• The findings could be due to low statistical power and misclassification of UPFs, a researcher suggested.

CHICAGO — A greater intake of ultraprocessed foods, or UPFs, did not significantly increase the risk for type 2 diabetes in middle-aged adults, according to a study presented at NUTRITION.

“We were motivated with wanting to better understand how [UPFs], a staple of the U.S. diet which contributes to over 60% of caloric intake, was potentially influencing the risk of diabetes,” Neha Khandpur, ScD, an assistant professor in the division of human nutrition and health at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, said during a presentation.

Previous research has shown that UPFs may raise the risk for mortality in individuals with type 2 diabetes.

There is a growing body of research suggesting that UPF intake is tied to diabetes development, with possible mechanisms including “weight gain from caloric intake overconsumption and gut-microbiota dysbiosis,” Khandpur said. However, prior evidence is mainly from Europe and involves mostly white participants, she added.

In the current analysis, the researchers assessed 10,012 community-dwelling adults aged 45 years at baseline from the REGARDS study.

The participants’ dietary intake was assessed through a food frequency questionnaire that was administered between 2003 to 2007. The participants were then grouped into quartiles based on UPF intake. The specific UPF items were categorized based on the NOVA classification system.

The study’s primary outcome was self-reported incidence of type 2 diabetes, which the researchers collected from participants from 2013 to 2017. Khandpur and colleagues adjusted the analysis for demographic and lifestyle factors like age, sex, education level and income.

Overall, there were 1,273 cases of type 2 diabetes observed during 92,700 person-years of follow up.

The researchers found a modest but insignificant association between UPF intake and risk for type 2 diabetes among participants in the highest quartile of UPF intake vs. those in the lowest quartile.

No significant associations were found in a secondary analysis where alternate metrics were used to determine UPF intake.

Khandpur noted that poorer diet quality among higher UPF consumers was one of the bigger takeaways from the results.

The findings also suggest that greater UPF intake was tied to type 2 diabetes but “our associations were weak, our estimates were imprecise and did not reach statistical significance,” she said. "We also saw some suggestion for mediation by BMI.”