Researchers Warn Ultra-Processed Foods Are Driving a Global Public-Health Crisis

Summary

New research pub­lished in The Lancet warns that ultra-processed foods (UPFs) are caus­ing wide­spread harm to global pub­lic health, with UPFs now account­ing for roughly half of house­hold food intake in high-income coun­tries. The authors empha­size that high con­sump­tion of UPFs is asso­ci­ated with var­i­ous chronic dis­eases, and call for pol­icy inter­ven­tions to reverse the rise in UPF pro­duc­tion and con­sump­tion.

New research pub­lished in The Lancet warns that ultra-processed foods (UPFs) are inflict­ing wide­spread and esca­lat­ing harm on global pub­lic health.

The wide-rang­ing Series pub­lished in The Lancet finds that UPFs — engi­neered from inex­pen­sive com­mod­ity ingre­di­ents and loaded with addi­tives — now account for roughly half of house­hold food intake in high-income coun­tries and are ris­ing quickly else­where.

According to the papers sum­ma­rized in The Lancet’s abstract, high UPF con­sump­tion is asso­ci­ated with higher rates of car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease, dia­betes, var­i­ous can­cers, sys­temic inflam­ma­tion and hor­monal dis­rup­tion. The Series also high­lights emerg­ing evi­dence link­ing UPFs to micro­biome alter­ations, depres­sion and anx­i­ety.

Researchers report that UPFs dis­place tra­di­tional, nutri­ent-dense foods, under­min­ing dietary qual­ity and accel­er­at­ing cul­tural and agri­cul­tural ero­sion. Consumers are increas­ingly exposed to excess sodium, added sug­ars, refined fats and cos­metic addi­tives that affect metab­o­lism, sati­ety and gut integrity.

The Series empha­sizes that the dan­ger stems not from indi­vid­ual prod­ucts but from dietary pat­terns dom­i­nated by UPFs. When these foods replace whole or min­i­mally processed options, their addi­tives and altered food struc­tures inter­act in ways that heighten meta­bolic and inflam­ma­tory risks.

UPF com­mer­cial­iza­tion also rein­forces addic­tive eat­ing behav­iors through hyper­palata­bil­ity and reward-dri­ven mech­a­nisms, affect­ing both chil­dren and adults.

The authors fur­ther note that indus­trial UPF sup­ply chains rely on fos­sil-fuel-inten­sive sys­tems that con­tribute to envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion. Monoculture farm­ing, long-dis­tance trans­port and ubiq­ui­tous plas­tic pack­ag­ing form an unsus­tain­able model closely tied to wors­en­ing cli­mate impacts.

These con­clu­sions draw on more than 100 prospec­tive stud­ies, meta-analy­ses, ran­dom­ized tri­als and mech­a­nis­tic research. National dietary sur­veys and pur­chase data­bases show how UPFs steadily eclipse health­ier foods. Controlled feed­ing tri­als, though fewer, demon­strate that pro­cess­ing itself alters appetite, metab­o­lism and energy intake. Mechanistic work in humans and ani­mals iden­ti­fies path­ways involv­ing dis­rup­tion of the micro­biota, inflam­ma­tion, altered sati­ety sig­nals, and rapid nutri­ent absorp­tion.

Evidence on mar­ket­ing, cor­po­rate power and shift­ing food envi­ron­ments helps explain the rapid expan­sion of UPFs. In the U.S. and the U.K., they now account for more than half of daily calo­rie intake. In Spain, UPF con­sump­tion has risen from 11 per­cent to 32 per­cent over the past few decades, with sim­i­lar trends across many coun­tries.

The Lancet frames the global shift toward UPFs around three core hypothe­ses: they dis­place tra­di­tional diets, degrade over­all diet qual­ity and are con­sis­tently asso­ci­ated with increased risks of major chronic dis­eases.

The Series argues that UPFs are now a cen­tral dri­ver of diet-related dis­ease world­wide — a theme fur­ther explored in com­pan­ion papers on pol­icy inter­ven­tions and pub­lic health responses.

In the pol­icy-focused paper, ​“Policies to halt and reverse the rise in ultra-processed food pro­duc­tion, mar­ket­ing, and con­sump­tion,” researchers call for redi­rect­ing sub­si­dies, ban­ning child-tar­geted mar­ket­ing, restrict­ing pro­mo­tional strate­gies and reform­ing retail envi­ron­ments and label­ing sys­tems. Governments and inter­na­tional agen­cies are urged to col­lab­o­rate to make healthy diets the default.

“Towards uni­fied global action on ultra-processed foods” shifts atten­tion to com­mer­cial deter­mi­nants of diet, not­ing that a hand­ful of transna­tional cor­po­ra­tions shape food con­sump­tion pat­terns world­wide. Through mar­ket­ing power, reg­u­la­tory influ­ence and polit­i­cal reach, these com­pa­nies rein­force the global dom­i­nance of UPFs. The authors call for com­pe­ti­tion pol­icy reform, new gov­er­nance struc­tures and trans­par­ent mon­i­tor­ing of cor­po­rate strate­gies.

The Series also stresses that UPFs exac­er­bate socioe­co­nomic inequities. Consumption is high­est among house­holds under finan­cial pres­sure, where inex­pen­sive processed prod­ucts often replace health­ier alter­na­tives. Without strong safe­guards, efforts to reduce UPF intake could worsen food inse­cu­rity or increase unpaid domes­tic labor — par­tic­u­larly for women. Equity, the researchers argue, must guide any tran­si­tion.

The authors con­clude by call­ing for a coor­di­nated global move­ment that strength­ens civil soci­ety, sup­ports lower-income coun­tries in resist­ing cor­po­rate inter­fer­ence and ensures that health equity remains cen­tral to food-sys­tem trans­for­ma­tion.