French scientists published a study on Thursday linking the risk of cancer to the consumption of industrially processed food, particularly ‘ultra-processed’ foods such as industrially produced bread, cakes, and chicken nuggets, according to media reports.
The study published in the British journal British Medical Journal involved 105,000 people. Scientists from the Paris University Sorbonne Paris Cite suggest in the study that with the increasing consumption of industrially processed food, the risk of developing cancer also rises.
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The scientists add that the results need to be ‘confirmed in other large’ studies, and that further research is needed to determine the causes of the possible link between industrial food and cancer cases.
This conclusion is presented very cautiously, but experts warn that healthy food is the best way to avoid the risk of malignant diseases, reports the BBC.
The World Health Organization (WHO) previously stated that being overweight is the second largest health risk after smoking, and that industrially processed food contributes to the risk of developing cancer.
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French scientists focused on ‘ultra-processed’ food – in the study, they monitored the health of mainly middle-aged women over five years. The results show that the risk of cancer increased by 12 percent for every ten percent increase in the share of ‘ultra-processed’ food in the diet.
‘These results suggest that the rapid increase in the share of ultra-processed food consumption could lead to an increase in cancer cases in the coming decades,’ the scientists state.
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However, they add that these results need to be ‘confirmed in other large’ studies, and that further research is needed to determine the causes of the possible link between industrial food and cancer cases. This study is far from being a definitive confirmation of the link between cancer and the consumption of industrially processed food, states the BBC.
