Junk food age shock: 200 calories from ultra-processed foods increases biological age by 2.4 months

Treating yourself to a single daily chocolate bar, or even a handful of chips, is increasing your biological age. And by just how much might shock you.

A daily chocolate bar could be causing you to age more quickly, a new study of ultra-processed foods warns.

The Monash University-led study, published on Tuesday, found a “clear and strong relationship” between how much ultra-processed food is in a diet and biological ageing.

Biological age reflects how your body is ageing on the inside, which can be faster or slower than your actual age depending on your lifestyle and genetics.

Ultra-processed foods include chips, carbonated drinks, instant noodles, ice cream, chocolate, biscuits, ready-to-eat meals, sausages, burgers, chicken and fish nuggets, sweet or savoury packaged snacks and energy bars.

“The simple description I like to use is that it refers to food products that have ingredients that you don’t find in your kitchen,” first author Barbara Cardoso said.

A Monash University-led study has found ultra-processed foods can be causing you to age more quickly.

The nutritional biochemist led the team from Monash University’s Department of Nutrition, Dietetics and Food and Monash Victorian Heart Institute.

She said the findings underlined the importance of eating as many unprocessed and minimally processed foods as possible.

“In Australia, around one-third of the calories in diets are coming from ultra-processed foods,” Dr Cardoso said.

“Ideally that should be zero and it is absolutely doable because when we speak of ultra-processed foods, we’re speaking of industrialised food, so if we have real food on the table, that’s not ultra-processed, it’s doable.”

Dr Cardoso said until now the association between ultra-processed foods and markers of biological ageing had “scarcely” been investigated, despite the obvious adverse health effects of these foods.

Dr Barbara Cardoso from Monash University’s Department of Nutrition, Dietetics and Food and Monash Victorian Heart Institute.

“The significance of our findings is tremendous, as our predictions show that for every 10 per cent increase in ultra-processed food consumption there is a nearly two per cent increased risk of mortality and 0.5 per cent risk of incident chronic disease over two years,” she said.

“The higher or the worse the biological ageing, the higher the risk for mortality and other disease.”

Dr Cardoso said in simple terms, a standard diet is usually 2000 calories, and by increasing 200 calories a day from ultra-processed foods such as one small chocolate bar or even a small serve of chicken bites increases the ageing process by 2.4 months.

Asked if this could be offset by a healthy diet, Dr Cardoso said while it helps, it won’t attenuate the effect of ultra-processed food completely. “You can’t do half and half,” she said.

The study used data from the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and included 16,055 people aged 20-79 whose health and lifestyles were comparable to those in other western countries such as Australia.

Experts say in Australia around one-third of the calories in diets are coming from ultra-processed foods.

“In all the study participants we found the effect of ultra-processed foods was significant, even after adjusting for diet quality and total calorie intake,” Dr Cardoso said.

“Our findings point to a compelling reason to target ultra-processed foods consumption to promote healthier ageing.”

AT A GLANCE:

•In Australia, around one-third of the calories come from ultra-processed foods

•An extra 200 calories daily from ultra-processed foods can increase biological age by 2.4 months

•Healthy diets include whole, plant-based foods high in fibre and low in saturated fat, sodium and added sugar