Ultraprocessed food (UPF), health, and mechanistic uncertainty: What should we be advising the public to do about UPFs?

Eric Robinson; Alexandra Johnstone

doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1004439

Ultraprocessed food (UPF), health, and mechanistic uncertainty: What should we be advising the public to do about UPFs?

Eric Robinson^* (Corresponding Author)
, Alexandra Johnstone

^*Corresponding author for this work

University of Liverpool

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

14 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

In this perspective, we discuss why current mechanistic uncertainty on ultraprocessed foods (UPFs) and health acts as a major challenge to providing informed dietary guidelines and public advice on UPFs. Based on the balance of current evidence, we do not believe it is appropriate to be advising consumers to avoid all UPFs and we await further evidence to inform consumer guidance on the need to limit consumption of specifics foods based on their degree or type of processing.

Original language	English
Article number	e1004439
Number of pages	4
Journal	PLoS Medicine
Volume	21
Issue number	10
Early online date	15 Oct 2024
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1004439
Publication status	Published - Oct 2024

Bibliographical note

Competing interests: I have read the journal’s policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: ER: During 2014-2016, I was a named investigator on a project funded by Unilever and a project funded by the American Beverage Association. I do not receive any financial awards or fees from the food industry. AMJ: I currently receive funding from UKRI, charities, the Scottish Government, Innovate UK, and CSO for research projects. I lead the FIO Food research project, funded by UKR (BB/W018020/1), where there is a retailer project partner, to address inequalities in healthy and sustainable eating in people living with obesity. I also lead the DIO Food project, also funded by UKRI, with other UK retailers involved in data analysis and consumer trend reporting around HFSS purchase patterns. I currently hold one personal contract research award, which is to provide nutrition advice for a local catering service provider in Scotland.

Funding

ER is funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre (BRC). Grant number: NIHR203316. AMJ is currently funded by the Scottish Government via grant award R1-B7-1. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Funders	Funder number
National Institute for Health and Care Research	NIHR203316
Scottish Government	R1-B7-1

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Cite this

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abstract = "In this perspective, we discuss why current mechanistic uncertainty on ultraprocessed foods (UPFs) and health acts as a major challenge to providing informed dietary guidelines and public advice on UPFs. Based on the balance of current evidence, we do not believe it is appropriate to be advising consumers to avoid all UPFs and we await further evidence to inform consumer guidance on the need to limit consumption of specifics foods based on their degree or type of processing.",

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Ultraprocessed food (UPF), health, and mechanistic uncertainty: What should we be advising the public to do about UPFs?

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

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