NEW DELHI: If you are fearful of the health impact of processed foods that you are unable to eliminate from your diet, here’s an alternate option; find food items that are less processed.
According to a new study published in the journal,
The Lancet
Regional Health – Europe, which looked into the potential link between degree of processing of food and incident of diabetes, replacing ultra-processed food or UPF with unprocessed/minimally processed food (MPF), processed culinary ingredients (PCI) or processed food (PF) lowers the risk of developing the disease.
The Lancet study involved over three lakh people for an average of 10.9 years. Research found that each 10% increment of total daily food intake from UPF (%/day) was associated with 17% higher incidence of diabetes.
Even among the UPFs, researchers found, breads, biscuits and breakfast cereals, sweets and desserts, and plant-based alternatives were associated with lower incidence of diabetes.
Ultra-processed savoury snacks, animal-based products, ready-to-eat meals, and sugar-sweetened beverages/artificially-sweetened beverages were associated with higher risk of incident of diabetes, the study revealed.
Dr Anoop Misra, chairman of
Fortis C-Doc
, said “It is especially important for India, where
fast food consumption
and type 2 diabetes are on the rise, especially post Covid-19 pandemic. Currently, there is an increased reliance on ready-to-eat meals and snacks, increasing heart attack and fatty liver risk, besides diabetes,” he said.
