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Ultraprocessed CVD, Lipid Guidelines, and Antidepressants’ SCD Risk
March 19, 2026
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Together with
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“I don’t understand the urge to make recommendations in the absence of evidence. Why not just say nothing when there is no evidence?”
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John Mandrola, MD
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We already know that what you put in your body is directly related to your overall health, including cardiovascular risk, but a new JACC study suggests your ethnic background could impact just how much damage ultraprocessed foods do to your body.
- There still isn’t 100% consensus on what an “ultraprocessed” food is, but industrial products like frozen pizza, energy drinks, soda, and cereals tend to fit the bill.
- That’s because they’re engineered to maximize the reward pathway effects in our brains while providing energy-dense, high-sugar, high-sodium, and low-fiber nutrition.
- Prior studies have already linked ultraprocessed food diets to higher ASCVD risk, but research was mostly on white participants or homogeneous non-U.S. populations.
Bringing plenty of new data to the table, the MESA analysis followed 6.5k diverse adults ( 39% white, 27% Black, 22% Hispanic, 12% Chinese) without baseline clinical disease consuming an average of 4.38 daily ultraprocessed food servings, finding some substantial risk associations…
- Each additional daily serving of ultraprocessed food led to a 5.1% relative CVD risk increase for a composite of nonfatal MI, cardiac arrest, CHD death, and stroke death.
- People in the highest category of ultraprocessed consumption had a 66% higher CVD risk than those in the lowest, with risk increasing steadily across the middle categories.
- It’s worth noting these results remained consistent when calculating ultraprocessed food as a percentage of total daily calorie intake.
There were also some finer details worth considering, with the ethnic background of a person greatly impacting CVD risk.
- For example, Black participants experienced a severe risk interaction with 12.3% CVD risk increase per 10% ultraprocessed percentage increase.
- Meanwhile this risk increase was only 7.9% in non-Black participants.
- Curiously, researchers didn’t find an interaction between ultraprocessed food consumption and sex or income.
Whether or not this increased risk is due to genetic factors or biological differences is unclear, since the study simply examined data rather than analyzing the relationship between food consumption and population risk across each ethnic category.
The Takeaway
More and more data and studies keep confirming that ubiquitous ultraprocessed foods are driving CVD risk and ultimately burden. This study now confirms that the burden is unequal, and while it’s still unknown why, it’s all the more reason to take a stand against industrial food.
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