r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • 7d ago
Health Ultra-processed foods harm men’s health. They increase weight, disrupt hormones, decrease testosterone, and introduce harmful substances linked to declining sperm quality. They contain industrial and synthetic ingredients. This may be why over the past 50 years, sperm quality has plummeted.
https://cbmr.ku.dk/news/2025/not-all-calories-are-equal-ultra-processed-foods-harm-mens-health/2.1k
u/clyypzz 7d ago
This is most likely just one factor of the problem. Others might be a far more sedentary life and work, more pollution of new types such as endocrine disruptores like BPA, PFAS, lead, aluminium, and tons of other stuff plus social factors plus stress from a changing society and so on and so on
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u/jackloganoliver 7d ago edited 7d ago
Yeah. I think in general modernization happened faster than we have been able to adapt, whether to new chemical compounds and foods or just to new modes of doing something like feeding ourselves in general.
Within the past two hundred years, our lives have changed so much that our day to day behaviors look nothing like our ancestors' just two generations ago, let alone the last 5-6.
We live the lives of a different species really. One far more sedentary and more mentally/emotionally/socially taxed than in the past. It's no wonder our bodies fail to meet the demands.
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u/details_matter 7d ago
Grasshoppers of the Acridoidea superfamily are a good metaphor, I think. The locust form versus the grasshopper form: same species, wildly different behavior.
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u/procrastablasta 7d ago
There’s a sci-fi short story about humans having a locust mode
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u/3esen 7d ago
What’s that called?
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u/scoopzthepoopz 7d ago
Weird that only a fraction of 1% of that family are locusts (19/6,800 per Cullen et al. ) yet everyone knows what locusts are. I also see environmental factors spur them to swarm and do other locust behaviors. Curious what industrialization and then post-industrialization will say about humans in hindsight.
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u/details_matter 7d ago
If this subject intrigues, I can heartily recommend a book-length examination of it: Civilized to Death by Christopher Ryan
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u/jackloganoliver 7d ago
I'm going to look into this, because it's something I've long struggled with myself. I feel like my brain is wired for a life that no longer exists, and I know i'm not the only one to feel this way.
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u/ray12370 6d ago
I can assure you that life style probably still exists, just probably not in the heavily modernized place you currently live in.
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u/jackloganoliver 6d ago
Oh god no. I'm not interested in giving up my life for that. I was just curious about the reading material
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u/jackloganoliver 7d ago
I wish I could see what humanity becomes in time before I die, just a glimpse of it to marvel and what we will achieve -- or maybe not. That might be a bit optimistic.
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u/AfraidOfTheSun 7d ago
You sound like Douglas Adams hah
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u/jackloganoliver 7d ago edited 7d ago
I'm been told I have very British sensibility and humor by everyone who has never met a Brit. It feels like quite the compliment for these people to give.
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u/StickStill9790 7d ago
OTOH, the OP is suggesting that decreasing intake of chemical laden food might be a good place to start making improvements. Great to know there are a lot of factors, but you have to start somewhere.
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u/jackloganoliver 7d ago
It's definitely a great place to start, as is just moving. Not even running, just walk and be active. Those two things alone should go a long way.
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u/Kakkoister 6d ago edited 6d ago
It's likely not even so much "chemical laden foods" but the decrease in important minerals from eating ultra-processed foods. There tends to not be much zinc and copper in processed foods, zinc is especially important for sperm production. But essential minerals and vitamins just generally aren't being consumed in good enough quantities, most "enriched" foods are enriched with things we tended to lack in the 1800s, not the late 2000s.
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u/reddigaunt 6d ago
The problem with not understanding all of the factors is that you risk spending resources on solutions that don't match their effectiveness. What if upf was only 10% responsible, but health institutions spent massive budgets on information campaigns to reduce upf consumption. Well, the populace is now 10% healthier, but now we did nothing to address the effect of sedentary lifestyles and how it's 75% responsible (made up numbers).
Resources are limited, so we need to do our best to make the biggest impact with what we have.
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u/Worldly_Influence_18 6d ago
Focus on improvements, not eliminations.
It's about what you're not doing for your body and less so about the crap you add
Other than inhaling smoke (doesn't matter the kind). Eliminate that.
Then drink more water and eat more vegetables or take supplements and you'll address the majority of infertility problems affecting men. Cutting out processed food isn't going to change much by itself.
Hydrate. Reduce or offset oxidative stress. If that doesn't fix the problem then you are really going to struggle because everything else are minor variables
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u/greiton 7d ago
a little off topic, but I hate how overpriced and subscription based exercise equipment has become.
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u/jackloganoliver 7d ago
I moved to a city a few months ago, got rid of the car, and just walk. Down 30lbs and feeling good.
Just walk. You won't get ripped or look like the cast member of a Marvel movie, but you'll feel better and be healthier.
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u/greiton 7d ago
I used to live in a walkable city and it was much easier to keep weight off. being able to walk while getting errands done or going to work is great. but, outside of those spaces, the just walk idea gets harder. suddenly it isn't something that happens while you do other things, but something you have to carve time out of your day to do on its own.
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u/angelicism 7d ago
You can get a very good workout in at home with just a yoga mat and some exercise bands. One time purchase. I guess trying to simulate a 300lb bench press (I have no idea what a "good" bench press weight is) with exercise bands might be a little hard but you can certainly get some solid strength-based movement in.
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u/ActionPhilip 6d ago
A solid but pretty easy to achieve bench press weight is 1x your body weight. For reference, a push up is usually about 2/3 of your bodyweight equivalent in a bench, so the "equivalent" push up to a bodyweight bench for a 150lb person would be all the way down until your chest touches the ground, and all the way up, with 50lbs resting on your upper back/neck. A "good" bench press would be closer to 1.5x your body weight. A 300lb bench isn't insane, but it's pushing into outlier territory even among those that work out.
If all you care about is general daily fitness and body movement ability, push ups are totally fine.
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u/HybridVigor 7d ago
I live the r/homegym life and love it. Mostly weightlifting, which no one has found a way to make a subscription service happen as far as I'm aware, but also a walking treadmill for my standing desk that was really affordable. Also an ~$150 treadmill off Amazon. i'd love a Comcept 2 ($900 new but lots of used ones listed online) and they have an optional subscription service, but it isn't necessary. The squat rack, adjustable bench, Ironmaster dumbells and Olympic weights set me back around $1k but I don't need a gym membership anymore.
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u/ataxiastumbleton 6d ago
+1 for the Concept2 - they're tanks and last forever. I have something like 5 million meters on mine and I've never done any kind of maintenance.
Rowing is tough but it's the best cardio
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u/MythReindeer 7d ago
Would you mind sharing which walking treadmill you use with a desk?
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u/HybridVigor 6d ago
I got the WalkingPad Folding Treadmill P1 on sale a couple of years ago. It's more expensive than I remember. Maybe affected by the tariffs.
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u/greiton 7d ago
Tonal has absolutely brought subscription service to low end weight lifting. $5000 machine +$1200 per year for the ability to use it.
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u/HybridVigor 6d ago
Oh, yeah. A friend of mine has one. He and his wife make much, much more than me though, and I'm old school so free weights are my preference.
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u/MeltBanana 5d ago
I bought my power rack off Amazon for $200. I wouldn't squat 600lbs in it, but for 99% of regular people it's absolutely perfect and does everything a full priced Rogue rack does. For another $100 I added a lat pulldown and cable attachment.
I got a brand new set of 5-50lb rubber coated hex dumbbells, with stand, for under $600 from Walmart.
My plates I bought used. $100 bucks of foam flooring from Home Depot and some plywood for a deadlift platform.
Complete home gym, better than what is available is many commercial gyms, built for a little over a grand. I'd say right now is the cheapest time it's ever been to buy exercise equipment.
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u/S14Ryan 7d ago
I would probably take lead out of your list. Lead contamination and pollution has dropped significantly in the last 50 years.
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u/S14Ryan 6d ago
This is a pretty useless thing to add, as there is no good amount of it, there is a VERY bad amount of it, which nearly every person in the world born before around 1990 suffered from. Kids aren’t born chalk-full of lead anymore, despite being born with a non-zero amount, which will realistically never change.
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u/jibrilmudo 6d ago
This is most likely just one factor of the problem.
Diet cannot be overstated though. It's about 95% of your interaction with the environment, I have read once, since the skin doesn't absorb most things readily.
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u/Boboar 6d ago
Just to add to this thought: having a good diet would also better equip people to handle the other challenges mentioned. A good diet (from birth) would help a lot of people who otherwise suffer from a number of mental health issues that are exacerbated by poor diets. Stress is more manageable when you have a good diet. Even a sedentary lifestyle is less damaging with a good diet. It's just a very solid foundation to build upon. I'm not a professional, these are just my thoughts.
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u/joexner 7d ago
That microwave-your-balls-challenge on TikTok didn't help either
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u/Independent-Tennis57 7d ago
How does that work? You just take them out, and put them on the spinny plate?
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u/LoreChano 7d ago
I wonder if local levels of things such as lead and aluminium, etc. affect human population over time. By that I mean that every soil has different levels of these and other elements, and since people used to consume mostly locally produced goods up until relatively recently, different populations consumed different levels of these elements throughout different geographical areas. This could explain different retes of certain diseases, or even local genetic adaptations acquired by relatively isolated populations. If people have been living in a village for a thousand years and the soil around the village has high levels of lead, these people might have high levels of disease related to lead poisoning, or maybe developed some kind of lead resistance. Would be a very interesting concept for a future study.
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u/LucasRuby 7d ago
Probably much less than you're thinking, humans were never (almost never) that isolated, there was a lot more migration and interchange than you're assuming. I don't think humans would have been that hyperspecialized to deal with the specific toxins of one area.
Mostly we just lived with it, and most people wouldn't live long enough for that to matter. They had bigger issues affecting their health, something like a relatively higher concentration of mercury that could affect the average population IQ or more aluminum in the soil, it just wouldn't be noticed. That's the kind of issue we start caring about when we solve the big issues affecting our health.
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u/Ok_Series_4580 7d ago
Yep. We have studies showing the link between plastic contamination, and lower sperm counts as well.
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u/Sellazard 6d ago
Yep. Plasticizers started appearing right about 50 years ago. Quite the coincidence
We literally have meta analysis with sample of 80k+ samples and still wondering why happened.
Oil industry happened. They will try to convince you otherwise, that your food is to blame, as well as you not being conscientious enough about your diet.
We have evidence and nobody cares
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u/RyanIsKickAss 7d ago
So you mean to tell me it's not just seed oils like @GroyperSS1488 on twitter told me?!?
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u/maporita 6d ago
From the study:
"To get the best possible data, the scientists compared the health impact of unprocessed and ultra-processed diets on the same person. They recruited 43 men aged 20 to 35, who spent three weeks on each of the two diets, with three months ‘washout’ in between. Half started on the ultra-processed and half started on the unprocessed diet. Half of the men also received a high-calorie diet with an extra 500 daily calories, while half received the normal amount of calories for their size, age and physical activity levels. They were not told which diet they were on. Both the unprocessed and ultra-processed diets had the same amount of calories, protein, carbs and fats.
Men gained around 1 kg more of fat mass while on the ultra-processed diet compared to the unprocessed diet, regardless of whether they were on the normal or excess calorie diet. Several other markers of cardiovascular health were also affected."
So while the factors you mentioned may also play a part, the study controlled for those.
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u/Acrobatic_Flamingo 7d ago
Id love for one of these "ultra processed foods" studies to use like beyond meat and tofu and protein powder and other ultra processed foods that dont already also belong to the highly caloric, highly paltable group of foods we've known were bad for us forever. Ultra processed seems like a nonsense category to me and focusing on seems like its how we get people thinking beef tallow fries and cane sugar soda are the secret to health.
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u/J7mbo 7d ago
Exactly, every time a study brings “ultra processed foods” it turns into a discussion about what exactly that definition contains.
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u/JamesTiberiusCrunk 7d ago
Because it doesn't really mean anything. It's almost always just a very poor proxy for high sugar and high sodium.
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u/FrenchFryCattaneo 7d ago
It's not just that. It's also referring to foods that have been engineered to highly appeal in a certain way to your body. In the same way there's a difference between a card game with your friends and a casino, these foods are so hyper-appealing a normal person won't regulate their intake of them the way they would 'normal' food.
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u/130lb_sumo_wrestler 7d ago
It does mean something, it’s sometimes used to refer to the “ultra-processed” group in the NOVA classification, which relates to how raw ingredients are manipulated to produce food products. Think: “we sliced the mango and dried it” vs. “we emulsified all the bits of pig and added chemical binders and stabilizers”.
I’ve seen the criticism of this classification system before that the ultra-processed group contains lots and lots of foods that some people might consider healthy, like whole grain bread from the grocery store. While this might make the classification functionally too coarse for the US public, I think it also supports the idea that these foods, despite potential health risks, are so fundamental to our diets that we’d consider excluding them as overly impractical or impossible. I personally don’t find the classification useless, rather a reflection of how far down the road of ultra-processed foods we’ve gone.
Edit: this study also uses the NOVA classification. I highly recommend reading the Wikipedia page on it for further context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_classification
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u/JamesTiberiusCrunk 7d ago
The vast majority of people including dietitians and researchers would consider whole grain bread to be healthy. That's exactly the problem with this classification. It doesn't reliably tell you anything about healthiness or risk of the food. If you have concerns about high blood pressure, you want to track sodium, not level of processing. If you're concerned about diabetes or weight gain you should track sugar, not level of processing. If you're concerned about micro plastics, you'd need an understanding of which processes might introduce them, because not all processes will.
I personally don’t find the classification useless, rather a reflection of how far down the road of ultra-processed foods we’ve gone.
Ok, but that's a fundamental misunderstanding of the debate here. If you want to use this classification system to understand the prevalence of things in this classification system, that's fine. The entire debate everyone else here is having is whether this classification system is a good proxy for the healthiness and risk of eating a particular food. On that front, it's pretty close to useless.
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u/istara 6d ago
Exactly this. The problem is that it doesn't just mean "junk food" though there is usually huge overlap. There are ostensibly "healthy" foods that are actually ultra processed (various vegan meats and low calorie products often fall into this category) and there are very unhealthy foods that aren't UPF at all, such as crisps that may be just salt/oil/potato, but are essentially empty calories.
UPF refers to something quite specific as research is increasingly showing that food processing methods alone alter the way our gut absorbs foods, and certain additives - emulsifiers in particular - are potentially playing havoc with the gut biome.
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u/ArdillasVoladoras 7d ago
And near the top is a popped out paragraph of what the definition is.
I think a lot of commenters want to endlessly nitpick the definition and are actively trying to avoid how this is useful. It's similar to BMI; when applied to an individual person or item it's not particularly useful, but when applied to the whole population or breadth of foods, the macro level trends are relevant.
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u/Acrobatic_Flamingo 7d ago
I know what definition theyre using it just seems to me like a worse way to categories foods than other already available ones because plenty of low calorie foods fit that definition, and plenty of high calorie, high palatability foods are low in proccessing.
Is cane sugar coke more healthy for me than a protein powder drink? Are ground beef burgers better for me than impossible burgers? Are potatoes fried in beef tallow good for me, so long as theres no ingredients I dont recognize in them?
These are the questions I want answered when we're talking about how processed foods is, because the intuitive response to this focus on processing levels from people is to eat low processed burgers.
This specific study does actually control for calories and macronutrients, which is good but it doesnt detail the actual diets used, and the pictures they use to illustrate the low process diet is like, salmon and broccoli while the picture they use for an ultra processed diet is a burger and fries, even though the former could easily be more processed than the latter.
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u/Emm_withoutha_L-88 7d ago
Did you read it? Cus they're definition is so broad it can mean anything. They say pre frying is part of it.... That just means the food was fried before being frozen. You can do that at home. Using additives isn't some catch so, lecithin isn't going to cause these issues. But some other chemical may. By calling all of this "ultra processed" they've made a category so broad that it's meaningless.
They need to be listing specific ingredients. Not this "you wouldn't recognize it" crap.
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u/Mogling 7d ago
The definition in the article here does a poor job of explaining the NOVA food classifications, even if people read it they would not come off with a good understanding.
The macro contents of both meal groups were very different. Do we know if the results are due to that, or due to the processing of the food?
I think this study shows it is worth doing some more research on ultra processed foods, but the authors claim that this proves anything is a bit hyperbolic. So I don't think this is useful like BMI in making general statements. I think this is useful in that is shows that further research is needed.
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u/ArdillasVoladoras 6d ago
The macro contents were almost exactly the same, figure S1B. The fat profile is different (S1D). Did you read the study?
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u/Mogling 6d ago
Yes sorry, the fat/protein/carb mix is similar. The fat profile is different as you said. We do also see differences in the micronutrients. Fiber and sodium being the largest difference.
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u/ArdillasVoladoras 6d ago
That seems like relatively easy messaging. Show two of the test subject meals side by side, and show the micro differences and the study results below. The pure causal relationship isn't necessary to communicate with the public.
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u/ledwilliums 7d ago
Tofu is considered processed but not ultra processed. It's essentially just mashed beans. All the fo meat stuff is a different story but tofu is generally very healthy.
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u/FoxyBastard 7d ago
All the fo meat stuff
Mainly because it genuinely took me a moment to know what you meant, it's "faux".
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u/brycedriesenga 6d ago
Nah, it's "foe" meat because you're eating it so it's an enemy
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u/AttonJRand 7d ago
You designating faux meat and tofu as so different just based on vibes is the exact thing I think the OC was trying to be critical of.
Its still just processed legumes, lots of protein and fiber, what magic quality suddenly makes it bad for you?
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u/no_1_knows_ur_a_dog 7d ago
All categories are arbitrary and "processing" exists on a continuum so you're always going to find squishy classifications.
There's no simple definition of UPF. The Nova classification system considers things like: the number of ingredients that are not food itself but are additives for preservation, colour, foaming or anti-foaming; the amount of processing that requires industrial techniques (extrusion, mechanical separation, moulding); and the use of ingredients are not typically used outside of industrial food production facilities (e.g. casein, high fructose corn syrup, maltodextrin).
I made tofu yesterday, you grind soybeans and water and then boil the strained liquid, add a coagulant (lemon juice works) and then (for firm tofu) after the curds form you press out the excess liquid. It is "processed" in the sense that it is not plain boiled soybeans, but it is not "ultra processed" as described above. People been making tofu for millennia.
People have been making meat substitutes for millennia also! Buddhist vegetarian cuisine has a long history. But stuff like Beyond and Impossible is formulated in a lab and produced industrially, and (according to the Nova system) crosses the line into UPF.
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u/SimoneNonvelodico 6d ago
the number of ingredients that are not food itself but are additives for preservation, colour, foaming or anti-foaming; the amount of processing that requires industrial techniques (extrusion, mechanical separation, moulding); and the use of ingredients are not typically used outside of industrial food production facilities (e.g. casein, high fructose corn syrup, maltodextrin).
These seem very different things. I can easily believe that some chemical additives have weird side effects. I would be very surprised if somehow triturating something or passing it through a funnel changed its nutritional properties significantly. This literally feels like we're saying "well, with all that stuff being done, something is probably bad for you".
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u/no_1_knows_ur_a_dog 6d ago
For sure, it's possible we'll get more granular as research progresses.
Things can be counterintuitive though. For example mechanically separated meat — intuitively you think, well what's the big deal, it's just meat passed through a sieve under high pressure to separate meat from the bone, but fundamentally it's still just meat, right? But there have been concerns over its safety, and so in the US mechanically separated chicken is allowed only in certain types of products (e.g. hot dogs but not hamburgers) and must be clearly labeled, and mechanically separated beef apparently has a higher mad cow disease risk and has been fully prohibited in food for human consumption since 2004.
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u/ledwilliums 7d ago
No tofu and faux meat are different things. Tofu is a very specific lightly processd soy derivative. The category for faux meat is way more broad but they all include higher levels of ingredients and processing. The fact that the term ultra processed is a bit unclear seems to be the problem.
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u/GiantManatee 7d ago
Tofu is curdled soya milk pressed together (essentially bean cheese) and can be made from scratch with basic kitchen equipment and almost no cooking skills. To call tofu ultra processed is just plain incorrect.
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u/Holyvigil 7d ago
You can make it ultra processed by adding flavors and doing more than studying plain Tofu.
The problem he's getting at is not that plain Tofu in itself is super processed. Rather the problem that you are sidelining is with the study.
The study is flawed because it only studies food that we already know are unhealthy for a different reason other than it containing lots of chemicals.
If the study wants to isolate processed foods only then it should pick otherwise healthy but heavily processed foods.
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u/ledwilliums 7d ago
Yeah I think I agree with the core points of what y'all are saying just tofu is kinda awesome and I wanted to jump in and protect my boiii.
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u/jmlinden7 6d ago
Tofu by itself is just considered processed, but any tofu-based product would be considered ultra-processed (like meat substitutes, fried tofu, dried tofu, etc)
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u/Mostly_Enthusiastic 7d ago
Ultra processed food is a nonsense buzzword thrown around by health influencers to drive engagement through fear. Processing does not inherently make foods unhealthy. Yes, many UPFs like chips, soda, etc. are unhealthy, because they are loaded with fat, salt, and sugar and engineered to be highly palatable, not because they are "processed." There are plenty of UPFs that are incredibly healthy - yogurt, oatmeal, non-dairy milks, whole grain breads, canned beans, etc.
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u/cosi_fan_tutte_ 7d ago
Some chips don't even meet the definition of UPF, such as plain Lay's. Potatoes, oil, salt.
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u/ParadiseLost91 6d ago edited 6d ago
You're mixing up "processing" and "ultra-processing".
Rolled oats, baker's bread, canned beans etc are NOT UPF, they are just processed. There's a difference. Look up the NOVA classification, there are 4 levels and only the last level is ultra-processed. Humans have processed food for millennia; processing (grinding, straining, peeling, rolling, applying heat, baking, fermenting etc) are NOT problematic. Only ultra-processing is an issue. There's a difference, and you listing oats as UPF tells me you haven't looked into what constitutes the difference between processing and ultra-processing.
Humans have processed food (canning, preserving, straining, fermenting, rolling, peeling, baking, cooking) for millennia. Processing isn't the issue; ultra-processing is.
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u/TheKnitpicker 6d ago edited 6d ago
Humans have processed food for millennia
This statement really detracts from the strength of the rest of your comment. The fact that humans have been doing something for a long time is NOT proof that it’s safe or good for us. The fact that we’ve been doing something else for a short time is NOT proof that it’s bad for us. Some examples: Modern medicines like antibiotics are both modern and highly processed. They’re also good for you. On the other hand, humans have been creating alcoholic beverages for a very long time, but alcohol is not good for you. We’ve also been preserving things with salt and/or smoking for a long time, and those foods aren’t considered healthy either (compared with fresh foods).
But this gets at the heart of the debate around the usefulness of classifying things as ultra-processed foods. It’s not clear which processing steps are bad and why, and lay advocates for this classification scheme primarily rely on vague “it’s modern and industrial!!” phrasing, as though that’s inherently obviously bad. But why is it bad? When exactly does the evil enter the food? It’s like we all start with an intuition-based classification scheme for food - chips are bad, fresh veggies are good, chicken nuggets are bad, baked chicken breast is good - and then form this classification system to align with that intuition, and then use that to conclude again that chicken nuggets are bad.
And many of the criteria, at least as conveyed to a lay audience, sound poorly defined and therefore stupid. For example, “things you can’t do at home” or “ingredients not commonly used by home cooks” is obviously a moving target. The ingredients available to home cooks changes over time, as do the appliances and processes. Air frying is newer than pan and deep frying, does that mean it’s more unnatural and therefore unhealthy? Probably not.
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u/daquist 6d ago
Most people just have no idea about nutrition in my experiences. My girlfriend is a NASM certified personal trainer with a focus on diet and weight loss.
People way over complicate it. The majority of people will be perfectly fine by just eating a balanced diet with fruits and veggies and light exercise a few times a week or daily (like a 30 minute walk, not incredibly taxing exercise)
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u/nicuramar 7d ago
Tofu isn’t really that processed, is it? It’s basically cheese.
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u/Acrobatic_Flamingo 7d ago
I dunno it takes a pretty involved process to make. So does cheese honestly. The lack of clarity on on what "ultraprocessed" even means is another problem with the term.
The point is, a beyond burger is the most processed thing possible. Is it actually worse for you than a simple unprocessed ground beef patty? I'm deeply skeptical of that idea.
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u/dos_user 7d ago
Correct. It's not ultra processed, just regular processed. Ultra processed foods have ingredients you wouldn't find in your kitchen. Things like emulsifiers, colorings, flavor enhancers, bulking agents, gels. Cheese is not ultra processed, but American Cheese is because of the emulsifier used to make it, for example.
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u/ckaili 6d ago
You can make a solution of sodium citrate, which is what's used to stabalize American Cheese, by mixing baking soda and lemon juice, both of which are common ingredients in kitchens.
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u/stumpyraccoon 6d ago
But sodium citrate sounds spooky! And if it sounds spooky it's scientifically bad! Tik Tok said so!
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u/potatoaster 6d ago
What if I have gelatin in my kitchen? Is aspic no longer a UPF for me specifically?
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u/Sitethief 6d ago
Those are such broad categories, for fucks saka, I use mustard as an emulsifier. You can use pure carotjuice to colour foods. Broadly calling all these things bad is so not helpful at all.
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u/King_Chochacho 6d ago
I'd love for there to be a standard definition of "ultra-processed foods" for a start.
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u/SeekerOfSerenity 6d ago
It seems like lazy science to me. Instead of trying to identify the specific ingredients that are harmful, they just lump everything into "processed food", and study that. Humans have been eating processed foods since prehistory.
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u/mrlazyboy 7d ago
I’m gonna be honest, this is yet another example of most likely being overweight impacting everything else.
Being overweight disrupts hormones and decreases testosterone. Doesn’t matter if you eat ultra-processed foods or fruit. If you are overweight, odds are higher that you will experience these problems.
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u/bUrdeN555 7d ago
Or both? Ultra processed foods do make you fat but they also include harmful ingredients.
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u/Naggins 7d ago
Which ultraprocessed foods though.
This is the problem with the designation. Is the problem with the process, or with the harmful ingredients? Is it the process or is it the macronutrient and calories? What is it supposed to mean?
This just reminds me of when E numbers were the biggest problem with food despite half of them just referring to spices, flavourings, stabilisers etc that are completely healthy, or the fearmongering over GMO foods. This idea that the more you do to food the worse it gets for you is just unscientific nonsense.
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u/manocheese 6d ago
"I don't trust the food industry because it's run by massive corporations that will do anything to make money. The massive corporations that run the wellness industry only have our best interests at heart, that's why I'm happy to pay double for their food."
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u/gmoney23x 7d ago
If they contribute to calorie over consumption they'll make you gain weight but I haven't seen any studies that show they're actively detrimental when calories are equated. Highly processing foods is likely reducing nutritional value but I don't think it guarantees it is unhealthy beyond crowding out space for healthier foods. Making the cheapest, most easily accessible food hyper palatable and likely to be overconsumed is the biggest detriment I can see.
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u/duffman_oh_yeah 7d ago
The linked study is literally a study that says that.
Despite caloric matching of discordant diets, we observed differences in body weight accumulation between diets, which appear to reflect changes in fat mass. This uncoupling between total energy consumed and body weight suggests that total caloric intake is not the sole determinant of body weight gain.
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u/makesterriblejokes 7d ago
What was the physical activity level of those who ate and didn't eat ultra processed food?
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u/vazxlegend 7d ago
I didn’t see it reported in the study. I may have missed it but I looked pretty thoroughly and I didn’t see it mentioned.
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u/makesterriblejokes 6d ago
Yeah I think that could be a big factor here if they didn't control that.
I think there's likely a correlation that individuals who do not eat ultra processed foods are also more likely to be more physically active than those who eat ultra processed foods.
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u/vazxlegend 6d ago
In this studies case it seems like they assigned individuals a specific diet to adhere too so not sure about any correlation between activity level and a chosen diet can be made. However, I agree not controlling for activity level would still be problematic as there is no saying how active one random group was compared to the other. I think also adherence to the given diet might be a bigger problem aswell.
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u/istasber 6d ago
That would be my question too.
Anecdotally, when I'm eating better, I tend to have more energy and am more willing to move around. Are ultra processed foods bad because they are harmful or are they bad because they aren't healthy? Those are two entirely different problems which should have entirely different responses from regulatory agencies.
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u/InterestingDisplay68 7d ago
This needs to be higher up. People (a) don’t read the links and (b) are obsessed with calories driving everything.
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u/vazxlegend 7d ago
Calories (as a measurement for energy anyways) do drive everything. The problem is the ability to accurately know actual calorie consumption vs expenditure. You cannot magically create something (fat/mass) out of nothing.
I am of course not including things like water weight which can be significant in something like Congestive heart failure for example. Fat mass and lean mass, which this study also looks at, would be more relevant than just total body weight.
There is also the theoretical limit for having adequate enough enzymes to digest 100% what you eat but that again just goes back to the “accurately know caloric intake/consumption” bit I mentioned earlier.
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u/vazxlegend 7d ago
Assuming the individuals in the study didn’t deviate from the given diet at all within those 3 weeks of time. Which the study does note “given diet adherence”.
Anecdotally ultra processed foods tend to be less filling in my experience than non-process foods. If the ultra processed foods group ate more than their allotted amount or the nonprocessed group ate less (because they actually got full) then it could account for a difference.
Also as a side tangent I wonder if the ultraprocessed foods are metabolically easier to digest and store leading to a lower calorie expenditure to utilize the caloric intake. Ultimately leading to a lower BMR and so the net caloric intake would be increased? Or if there is actually some other biological mechanism at hand.
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u/a_student_of_puzzles 7d ago
Kimchi is ultraprocessed food, yet it does not make people fat and contrains nothing harmful.
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u/KuriousKhemicals 7d ago
I'm pretty sure that is just classified as processed (NOVA category 3) like fresh baked bread, cheese, canned tuna, etc.
I do agree though, that while ultra-processed food may be a useful new category, there are a couple of subgenres that may be beneficial that need to be broken out (e.g. fiber fortified foods), and studies also need to control for the majority of UPF that has other features we already know to be bad in their own right. I.e. the predigested particle size and emulsifiers and stuff might be worse but you need to also just take account of the saturated fat content.
Kevin Hall's research did a lot to support the notion that it's not just a function of sugar and saturated fat and lacking fiber, but a lot of the follow-up research seems to be pretty careless and essentially is just finding the same conclusions for "UPF" that we already found for "junk food" because yeah, a majority of UPF is junk food.
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u/ParadiseLost91 6d ago
Kimchi isn't ultra-processed, no. It's just processed. Humans have processed food since we learned to use heat. Fermenting, like with kimchi, isn't an issue. Look up the definition of ultra-processed, or read the excellent book Ultra-Processed People.
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u/mrlazyboy 7d ago
How do ultra processed foods make you fat?
I’ll be more specific - my TDEE is 2800 calories. If I eat 2800 calories of twinkies or apples, my tissue mass will remain the same.
Eating too many calories makes you fat. The fact that I use whey protein powder (one of the most processed foods you can eat) has not made me fat. In fact, I lost 50 pounds using it.
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u/chili_cold_blood 7d ago
my TDEE is 2800 calories. If I eat 2800 calories of twinkies or apples, my tissue mass will remain the same.
The problem with this reasoning is that what you eat affects your metabolism.
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u/ScipioLongstocking 7d ago
Despite caloric matching of discordant diets, we observed differences in body weight accumulation between diets, which appear to reflect changes in fat mass. This uncoupling between total energy consumed and body weight suggests that total caloric intake is not the sole determinant of body weight gain.
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u/Aeonoris 7d ago
The study discusses this! Here's an excerpt:
In the present study, many clinical parameters, including fat mass, LDL:HDL ratio, and markers of reproductive health, were differentially affected by adequate or excess energy intake, indicating that both caloric intake and the processed nature of the food are likely to contribute to the deleterious effect of UPF consumption.
Despite caloric matching of discordant diets, we observed differences in body weight accumulation between diets, which appear to reflect changes in fat mass. This uncoupling between total energy consumed and body weight suggests that total caloric intake is not the sole determinant of body weight gain.
And then, direct to your question:
Factors such as a decrease in the metabolizable energy available from unprocessed versus UPFs and/or alterations in metabolic rate caused by dietary-driven hormonal changes, such as GDF-15, could contribute to altered energy balance. Similarly, in a previous study, increased caloric intake driven by ultra-processed versus unprocessed diet did not fully account for the body weight increase. Based on the estimated relationship between caloric intake and body weight change, the total energy difference of 7,100 kcal between the ultra-processed and unprocessed diet consumption across the 2 weeks’ intervention was expected to lead to approximately 1 kg of weight gain, whereas study participants exhibited a difference in body weight of 1.8 kg across the intervention. Thus, the aggregation of this response to UPF in this latter study with our study provides evidence that calories from unprocessed or UPFs are not equally stored or metabolized, even when controlled for macronutrient load.
Emphases mine, and here's the link to the study
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u/aeneasaquinas 7d ago edited 7d ago
Despite caloric matching of discordant diets, we observed differences in body weight accumulation between diets
Sorry, does that mean they matched activity levels between people as well on the different diets? Matched caloric intake is meaningless without also matching that. Honest question, since I don't see that addressed.
Ed:
That study is incorrectly quoted.
Weight changes were highly correlated with energy intake (r = 0.8, p < 0.0001), with participants gaining 0.9 ± 0.3 kg (p = 0.009) during the ultra-processed diet
So uh, they did find 1kg. Not 1.8.
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u/Aeonoris 7d ago
What they did was take the 43 participants, and randomly divide them into 2 groups, each with 2 subgroups.
Group 1.1 was given adequate calories of unprocessed food for three weeks, then given 12 weeks with no dietary intervention, then given adequate calories of ultra-processed food for 3 weeks. Group 1.2 was the same, but went in the reverse order (ultra>washout>un).
For groups 2.1 and 2.2 they did the same thing, except in each case the diets were of excess calories, rather than adequate calories. If you'd like details on what they mean by that, there's a link in the study.
For an overview of that methodology, the graphic Figure S1A (top one here: https://www.cell.com/cms/10.1016/j.cmet.2025.08.004/asset/aa0fddcb-0877-4889-ade2-f9e54860565a/main.assets/gr1_lrg.jpg ) is a great visual aid!
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u/Aeonoris 7d ago
In response to your edit: Sorry, could you link where you're quoting that from? I'm having trouble finding it.
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u/LegLegend 7d ago edited 7d ago
Ultra processed foods tend to make you hungrier or less full because they tend to be very high in sugar and lack fiber. You can eat whatever amount of twinkies or apples to reach the same calorie amount and stop there, but you're going to feel hungrier, emptier, more addicted, and worse if you just ate the twinkies. This usually lends to eating more later. There are some exceptions to this generalization, but they're not common.
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u/J4YD0G 7d ago
So it's sugar and not processed food?
Why work with the correlation when you can go to the cause right away.
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u/LegLegend 7d ago
It's more than that.
What I've stated is just a broad generalization of ultra processed foods. High in sugar content and a lack of fiber are common in ultra processed foods but are not the only things that make them unhealthy.
For instance, ultra processed meats typically have a higher total of saturated fat content than unprocessed meats. This increase brings you closer to heart disease faster than if you were to just consume unprocessed red meats, and this isn't the only flaw with ultra processed meats.
Like the article here, a lot of research is still being done in the subject, but there is already a lot of confirmation out there that ultra processed foods aren't healthy for you. Sugar isn't the only concern.
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u/Acrobatic_Flamingo 7d ago
This all seems like it's pointing back to "A lot of foods that we all know are bad for you wind up ultra processed" rather than "there is something about processing food that makes it worse for you."
The danger here is, we've known what a healthy diet looks like for my entire life, but I keep seeing nutritional science essentially chase and reinforce fad diets that focus on one aspect of an unhealthy diet as the thing to worry about.
Focusing on process level is going to lead to people eating potato chips with "oil, potatoes, salt" as the ingredients and thinking they're healthy, in the same way the low fat diets of my youth increased sugar consumption and the more modern low-sugar diets lead people to excess fats.
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u/not_today_thank 7d ago edited 7d ago
First of all people in general aren't very good at balancing calories in a deliberate manner, especially if they have eaten a lot of calories and are still hungry. It only takes an imbalance of 10 calories per day to gain (or lose) 10.4 pounds in a decade. Our bodies actually seem pretty good about balancing calories on its own without our help. But throw in an ingredient that tricks your body into wanting more and it isn't hard for weight gain to get out of control. People don't usually get fat over-night, they usually only gain like 1-5 pounds a year, so we're talking 10-50 extra calories a day on average. Going from 150 pounds at age 20 to 200 pounds at age 50, is only an extra 16 calories a day.
Secondly, there have been rat studies that have demonstrated rats fed the same number of calories from different ingredients have gained signficantly different amounts of weight. There very likely is a difference in how much weight you will or won't gain depending on where those 2800 calories come from. Like from this study:
Despite caloric matching of discordant diets, we observed differences in body weight accumulation between diets, which appear to reflect changes in fat mass. This uncoupling between total energy consumed and body weight suggests that total caloric intake is not the sole determinant of body weight gain.
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u/Uncool_runnings 7d ago
There are numerous studies now suggesting ultra processed foods lead you to over eat, in a way that whole foods don't.
The human bodies entire eating self-regulatory system is bypassed for these food groups.
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u/mrlazyboy 7d ago
So what you’re saying is eating more calories of UPF makes you gain more weight than eating fewer calories of healthy food?
Do you think this is a novel statement? That eating more food makes you gain more weight?
This is what the argument always boils down to: UPF makes you hungry (it does!) so it makes you eat more of it, so you gain weight.
What you actually need is a longer-term study (probably at least 1 month, ideally 2-3) with 50-100 people all verifiably eating their TDEE every day. Then break them into 2 groups: UPF and healthy foods. Then see what happens to their scale weight but also body composition.
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u/LukaCola 7d ago
The study was a comparison between two groups, the difference in weight after 3 weeks of testing was 1kg with other factors kept the same.
You're not telling me 1kg of weight makes this kind of difference, correct?
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u/Master_Plaster96 7d ago
Being overweight also makes it difficult for healthcare workers. Harder to get an IV started, harder to move a patient so requires more nurses. Some people require specific equipment like larger BP cuffs or tables/seats. Plus more problems can arise like fungal infection in their folds, or pressure injuries.
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u/CCGem 6d ago
Your plainly wrong. Why do you intuition tells you that it’s likely being overweight? There’s a bias somewhere in your thinking process.
Hormonal issues mostly happen to women but can happen at any weight. For example polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the one of the most common endocrine disorder for women and it generally involves impossibility to loose weight (even if you starve yourself). A common bias is to think people who have PCOS have it because they’re overweight when it’s the opposite way around. It’s just one examples in MANY.
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u/Confident_bonus_666 7d ago
The study controlled for calories. A control group was given the same amount of calories and ratio of macros. It was the processed food itself that led to the observed decrease in sperm quality.
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u/probability_of_meme 7d ago
This may be why over the past 50 years, sperm quality has plummeted
Even though there may be some truth in this hypothesis, I think it's dangerous to put it forward without evidence that ultra-processed foods are a significant factor. My fear being that it tends to take the focus off polluters and other perpetrators of ecological catastrophes whose actions I suspect are far more significant and closely related to countless other health problems we are facing.
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u/Mr_Nicotine 6d ago
Finally. Everything’s at fault except money-driven global-scale issues! Higher stress because of impeding doom of being fired from your 60 hours a week job? Nuh uh, it’s the… seed oils!!
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u/T_Weezy 7d ago edited 7d ago
Ok. That means roughly nothing unless you can point to specific compounds and mechanisms of action. "Ultra-processed" is way too wide of a term.
Group 4 is ultra-processed foods, which contain industrial and synthetic ingredients that you wouldn’t recognize on a supermarket shelf. They are also industrially manufactured using processes like moulding, extruding and pre-frying that help food producers introduce these synthetic ingredients in standardised and mass-produced foods.
This is not a scientifically useful definition. There are no solid definitions of classes of compounds, let alone specific species. On top of that, there are even extraneous clauses that have no relevance other than sounding scary; like I'm pretty sure that going through an extruder doesn't change the nutritional qualities of a food.
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u/RamblinGamblinWilly 7d ago
A definition that literally assumes what YOU would or wouldn't recognize is a bizarre one indeed
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u/potatoaster 6d ago
I'm a food scientist. I recognize all the ingredients on this package of Twinkies, so I guess it's not a UPF?
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u/F-Lambda 7d ago
"moulding" being one of the defining traits is absolutely hilarious to me. does pouring cake batter into a tin count as moulding? does layering a green bean casserole into a casserole dish count as moulding? what about crust for a pie?
"extruding" is also hilarious. does using a frosting applicator count as extruding?
then there's the weird sounding stuff like "carrageenan" that you don't recognize, but when you look into it you find that it's literally just sea weed (available at your local Asian market).
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u/T_Weezy 6d ago
then there's the weird sounding stuff like [chemical] that you don't recognize, but when you look into it you find that it's literally just [common food thing]
This pretty much sums it up. The constant drumbeat of "ultra processed food bad" studies very much feels more like a fad fueled by the constant push to be publishing novel studies regularly than like actually useful scientific advancement. It's a product of sociological processes and pressures more than scientific ones.
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u/Grizzleyt 6d ago
Right? You may as well study the health impacts of round foods, or foods that begin with the letter A.
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u/potatoaster 6d ago
Ultra-Processed Foods: Definitions and Policy Issues (Gibney 2018): "since the inception of the NOVA classification of foods, these examples of foods to which this [UPF] category applies have varied considerably"
Ultra-processed foods: how functional is the NOVA system? (Braesco 2022): "overall consistency among evaluators was low, even when ingredient information was available. These results suggest current NOVA criteria do not allow for robust and functional food assignments."
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u/Roland_Barthender 6d ago
"Ultra-processed foods" is a far too broad, diverse, and vaguely-defined category to be discussed scientifically with anything approaching seriousness.
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u/Ketzeph 7d ago
Isn’t it basically all due to weight? IiRC obesity is a major cause of hormone imbalance and sperm quality reduction.
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u/aposii 7d ago
You're right.
Obese Teen Boys Have Up to 50 Percent Less Testosterone than Lean Boys, UB Study Finds
Lots of research also suggests if you're obese in your late teens, fertility might not always rebound despite losing the weight later in life.
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u/big_trike 7d ago
Do we know if that's causal? It could very well be that having less testosterone is a risk factor for obesity.
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u/jbuckfuck 7d ago
Id tend to agree. I was overweight for 6 years and started going to the gym again, at a healthier weight now and downstairs function has improved tremedously and i just feel better overall. More energy and better mood.
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u/Numinous_Noise 7d ago
Probably more to it than that. The trend in declining sperm quality originates circa 1970 showing a progressive decline over time. Obesity rates in the US started ramping up a decade or so later. While obesity certainly contributes to the pathology it's far from being the sole determinant.
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u/IPutThisUsernameHere 7d ago
I think the article is implying that the GRAS preservatives & flavor enhancers used in such foods also contribute to those things, along with the weight.
Since correlation isn't causation, what we really need is another study indicating if GRAS chemicals impact hormone production & sperm count in subjects whose weights do not change.
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u/Affectionate-Air8672 7d ago
43 men in 9 week study. Much data.
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u/stlc8tr 6d ago
Also it appears to be a self-reported "free-living" study and not a carefully controlled in-patient study like the ones that Kevin Hall had been doing where they measure all inputs and outputs.
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u/ibeerianhamhock 6d ago
Yep. I'd guarantee anything the ultra processed foods folks probably deviated from set calories whether they admitted it or not. Whole foods folks probably did too, but because most of these folks felt full most of the time, they deviated less.
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u/Ateist 7d ago
Link to the actual study https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131(25)00360-2
Relevant part on study limitations:
Due to the study design, the estimation of energy intake relied on participants' adherence to the nutritional intervention and the accuracy of their reporting. Although adherence was assessed through detailed daily questionnaires and questionnaires at the end of each treatment period, we cannot rule out potential bias in the reporting of actual caloric intake. This may affect our ability to determine whether the effects of the UPF diet are dependent on caloric intake. However, the similar effects observed on body composition markers in both the adequate and excess caloric study arms suggest that the detrimental effects of the ultra-processed diet compared with the unprocessed diet are not solely attributable to caloric intake but extend across both study arms. Another limitation of our study is the relatively short duration of the experimental diets, which may not reveal stable effects of chronic diet consumption; 3-week diet interventions may have induced acute responses that may normalize with time if diets were prolonged. Although the ultra-processed diet unlikely triggered an adaptive response due to the similar amounts of UPFs in the experimental diet compared with the habitual diets of participants, the unprocessed diet represented an important shift compared with their habitual diets and may have induced acute responses, as suggested by the increased levels of inflammatory markers after the diet period. As we did not measure inflammatory markers in a time-course fashion, we cannot determine whether elevated markers of inflammation are normalizing at the completion of the unprocessed diet, as would be expected after an acute response.
So their unprocessed diet was a stress that was different from the normal diet of participants and caused inflamation, which might have contributed to weight gain difference.
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u/six_six 7d ago
What defines ultra processed food?
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u/MasterOfBarterTown 6d ago
I was surprised to learn that yogurt is also considered ultra-processed.
Basically, consider how long the list of chemicals are on the side of the package. And for meats -- avoid nitrates, they had good data linking them to cancer. (Also avoid celery extract - contains natural nitrates).
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u/rod_dy 7d ago
define ultra processed foods. cuz uh everything at the supermarket seems ultra processed. should i butcher my own meat?
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u/ItsBinissTime 6d ago
Butchering is a process. You have to eat live animals and plants that are still in the ground.
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u/Droidatopia 6d ago
Raw milk can be bad for you because it was milked, a process. To get the most health benefits from raw milk, you really need to drink it straight from the udder.
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u/potatoaster 6d ago
And heaven forbid that you pasteurize the milk. That's an industrial process completely unknown to Mother Nature!
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u/Droidatopia 6d ago
Does it count if we just pasteurize the whole cow? The milk is still raw. What do the NOVA guidelines say about the processing level of consuming raw milk directly from the udder of a cow while it is being heated to a temperature high enough to kill harmful bacteria?
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u/Martijn_MacFly 6d ago
Just cooking your food is making your food 'processed'. We've been doing it for millions of years; cooking; fermenting; smoking; drying; salting; etc.
Not everything 'processed' is bad, in fact, it is part of our digestive needs to get the most out of our foods.
'Ultra processed' foods seem to aim at foods that go beyond just processing it for human consumption by literally starting with a (poor quality) food base and adding chemicals to stabilise it in order to make it palatable and shelf stable. It comes with all the benefits of a long shelf life but with none of the nutritional benefits.
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u/CoachellaSPTA 7d ago
They publish photos of the various meals in the study, and it's impossible for me to believe that the macronutrient profile and the caloric content are similar between the diets.
As an example,
UPF Lunch 1: cowboy toast, chocolate milk, mixed candies
Unprocessed Lunch 1: falafel, hummus, chicken, mixed salad with chickpeas, sesame dressing
I wonder if someone more familiar with the study could comment because the core result (food processing having significant body composition effects, despite similar caloric and macronutrient profiles) is honestly a surprising one.
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u/Suza751 7d ago
Ngl I hate the term "ultra processes foods". My corn flakes are ultra-processed but my parents ate then growing up. My grandparents probably did too. They have like 5 ingredients and are reasonably okay nutritionally - high carbs, low fat, protein powder can supplement some protein, cut fruit for vitamins. Not a corn flakes advertisement but I suppose noodles would also qualify as ultra processed too.
On the other hand, McDonald's garbage food would be given the same label. Its kinda of misleading for the avg person.
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u/Valendr0s 7d ago
I'd be more likely to listen to this kind of claim if it was worded differently.
"This may be why over the past 50 years"
vs
"This may be one factor why over the past 50 years"
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u/kerodon 7d ago
Ah yes "the chemicals".
Dogshit title ticking every fearmongering term box.
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u/Tthelaundryman 6d ago
I know right. We all know it’s really a government psyop to make a population they can more easily control
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u/ItsBinissTime 6d ago
"Processed", in the context of diet discussions, is a weasel word used to imply badness without really saying anything. When pressed it'll sometimes come out that they're referring to nitrates and nitrites. But by being vague, they can cast aspersions over anything they happen to consider "unhealthy".
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u/SimoneNonvelodico 6d ago
I find "ultra processed foods" such a confusing definition. Surely it's not the simple act of processing that makes food unhealthy? There must be something specific being used that causes problems; do we have the slightest clue what ?
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u/Turtledonuts 6d ago
This title is terrible and I don't trust the results here. First of all, testosterone levels, Sperm Concentration, and sperm Motility did not significantly change between groups (Figure 3). You can't just just say "oh there was a trend" with no supporting stats. The use of words like "pollutants" is deliberately controversial but technically incorrect, and if I'm reading figure 4 correctly, their ultra-processed diet actually reduced several critical toxins like mercury and total PFOS. Overall distributions were chaotic and I don't think you can draw any meaningful conclusions from their results. The discussion is wildly speculative and focuses on confirmation bias.
I hate how cell hides all of the methods in a supplementary document because the methods here are clearly meant to create certain results. The list of 'ultra-processed meals' is drastically different from the unprocessed foods in volume, composition, and caloric value. Notably, the ultra-processed content didn't include any vegetable products or fiber, and clearly there's a lot of bias against ultra-processed food here. Scrolling through the list, it's obvious that they didn't try to directly compare products or anything. They make a huge deal about lithium content but don't do anything to control for lithium levels in the subjects or the diet.
Subjects couldn't drink, smoke, do any drugs, or take any medications / supplements during the study. They had to follow an ejaculation schedule that could be impacting things for them. They also had to only eat meals delivered to them.
Several of the processed meals aren't even pictured, but every unprocessed meal is lovingly plated and pretty looking. No adult would actually choose to eat this menu, it's horrible looking.
Ultra-processed snack number 2 is a snickers and a bottle of chocolate milk. Unprocessed snack number 2 is cheese, grapes, AND rice cakes with peanut butter and honey.
Unprocessed snack 7 crackers, smoked fish, red pepper slices, a cup of guacamole, and a banana? Processed snack 7 is a bottle of chocolate milk, pretzels, and a cup of guacamole.
Cheese is unprocessed, chocolate milk is processed. Smoked fish is unprocessed, oil packed tuna is ultra-processed. Falafel with hummus isn't processed, pulled pork and BBQ sauce is ultra-processed?
Even if those are calorically similar, there's clearly going to be a difference in mood and digestion between the two meals. It's a different volume of food, a different set of macronutrients, etc. Even then, the logic here doesn't make sense.
I've seen N = 1 studies conducted on sick wild animals with more rigor than this, and it's published in Cell Metabolism?
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u/FoxMan1Dva3 7d ago
It may be likely that the simple act of gaining such weight, and holding it, would be leading to all these health problems. Not any specific ingredient.
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u/Confident_bonus_666 7d ago
Did you read the study? They controlled for calories and macros, so no. The decrease in sperm quality was in fact due to the specific ingredients
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u/ParadiseLost91 6d ago
There is evidence that ultra-processed foods greatly contribute to weight gain; as in it makes you eat more than you would otherwise. So even if the increased weight is the issue at it's core, eating UPF will certainly help you get there a lot faster.
Overeating UPF is very, very easy for the average person. It's not helpful to maintaining a healthy weight to eat foods with maximum flavour (makes you want to eat more), but at the same time has little to no satiety or nutrition. That's a recipe for eating a lot more than you would with normal, natural foods.
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u/all_is_love6667 6d ago
so name the additives, why say "processed"
normal cooking is processing food
a home made pie is processed, so is it unhealthy?
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u/DeviantTaco 7d ago
I’m still not certain these studies reveal much besides being overweight and sedentary is very bad for you. If you consume adequate macro and micronutrients and are a healthy weight and exercise regularly, do you really have a substantial risk for health issues?
Even conditions like diabetes which is obviously linked to blood sugar levels seem to require being overweight and sedentary to manifest regardless of added sugar intake. Red meats, smoked preserved foods, and other specifically unhealthy foods do add some risk factors but they seem comparably mild.
McDonald’s + multivitamins + exercise might be peak human performance.
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u/No-Philosopher3248 6d ago
We need to reintroduce apex predators into everyday life. Imagine how thin and healthy you'd be if you had to dodge a saber-toothed cat, T-Rex, or even your average grizzly bear while walking to your car in the morning.
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u/Worldly_Influence_18 6d ago edited 6d ago
Hey r/Science
What exactly is ultra processed?
Is there a scientific definition?
No?
So...
Is this a scientific article?
"Small study" of 43 Danes
"Both groups tried ultra-processed and whole foods for three weeks each, with a break in between."
They didn't compare processed food and ultra processed food. They compared healthy foods and ultra processed foods
We understand the difference, right?
There were also signs of reduced sperm motility, though this was not statistically confirmed.
Not statistically confirmed.... But it's what all of the articles are leading with.
C'mon guys, do better. There is nothing scientific about this study
There are far too many variables to conclude the "ultra processing" is the reason for the different results.
Water intake is a massive factor in sperm count.
So is vitamin intake.
Addressing both of those things has significant documented improvement in sperm motility.
Want to determine if processing is a factor? You need to pick nutritionally identical food items, one heavily processed, one not
Same mg of sodium, fibre, etc just one gets there with transformative industrial processes
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u/Positive_Bill_5945 6d ago
Aren’t burgers and fries like this not ultra processed foods? I thought ultra processed only referred to like shelf stable, preserved items. Aren’t cooked meats, potatoes and breads just processed foods in that they’re cooked and seasoned and not raw?
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u/homingconcretedonkey 6d ago
This is a completely flawed study for the simple reason:
In short, They are replacing Mayonnaise that has a few ultra processed ingredients with a tomato and then comparing the effects on the male body.
A study that wasn't designed to be flawed from the start would simply provide mayonnaise that was not ultra processed, its very easy to make if an off the shelf product wasn't available.
This study simply says that if you eat nothing tasty or fun and only eat vegetables, you will be healthier.
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u/patrickw234 7d ago
Ultra-processed foods do not “increase weight”. No type of food inherently increases weight. The excess of food, including ultra-processed foods, is what increases weight. Eating a caloric surplus of literally anything will cause weight gain, regardless of what it is. You can gain weight eating bananas.
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u/Shcatman 7d ago
This is why the term ultra processed is so misleading.
Things like multivitamins and such are ultra processed, but most would agree that supplementing vitamins isn’t unhealthy.
I think they need to shift to low nutrient high calorie density foods. They’re not as satiating and have higher calorie counts.
But at the end of the day encouraging more fiber consumption would likely help a lot because it causes foods to be lower calorie and more filling.
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u/mvea Professor | Medicine 7d ago
I’ve linked to the press release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550413125003602
From the linked article:
Not all calories are equal: Ultra-processed foods harm men’s health
A groundbreaking human study has found that ultra-processed foods lead to increased weight, disrupt hormones and introduce harmful substances linked to declining sperm quality. The findings indicate that it is the processed nature of these foods that makes them harmful to cardiometabolic and reproductive health
Over the past 50 years, rates of obesity and type-2 diabetes have soared, while sperm quality has plummeted. Driving these changes could be the increasing popularity of ultra-processed foods, which have been linked to a range of poor health outcomes. However, scientists still aren’t sure whether it’s the industrial nature of the ingredients themselves, the processing of the foods, or whether it’s because they lead people to eat more than they should.
The scientists also discovered a worrying increase in the level of the hormone-disrupting phthalate cxMINP, a substance used in plastics, in men on the ultra-processed diet. Men on this diet also saw decreases in their levels of testosterone and follicle-stimulating hormone, which are crucial for sperm production.
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u/YT-Deliveries 7d ago
Worth noting that the first listed affiliation in the study is Novo Nordisk, maker of Ozempic.
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u/Turtledonuts 6d ago
According to the supplementals, they found no significant trend in weight gain or loss between interventions, and their confidence intervals were all over the place. They estimated one using some more stats, but it looks questionable to me - the raw numbers do not support their conclusions.
They found no significant difference in testosterone between groups. The found no significant difference in sperm motility or sperm concentration. There was no significant difference between groups in TSH, Leptin, or GDF15. They had massive outliers in every intervention group where they found significant differences. The distributions are huge and frankly, this study doesn't seem to prove anything.
They did not demonstrate any actual mechanisms for any of the effects they identified. You need to change your comment here because you're emphasizing trends that aren't supported by the statistics in the article. These decreases in hormone levels and sperm quality aren't significant, this isn't a clear trend, and this article's conclusions are overstated.
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