Eating a certain type of food could increase the risk of getting a deadly cancer at a younger age, researchers say.
A new study at Mass General Brigham has linked higher consumption of ultraprocessed foods, which largely include ready-to-eat foods with high levels of sugar, salt, saturated fat and food additives, to higher rates of precursors of early-onset colorectal cancer.
Researchers at Mass General Brigham have conducted the first study directly linking ultraprocessed food consumption to the precursors of early-onset colorectal cancer, finding that women who ate the highest amounts (an average of ten servings per day) had a 45% greater risk of developing adenomas (precancerous polyps) compared to those who consumed the least.
This observational study, which analyzed the diets and endoscopy results of nearly 30,000 women over twenty years, reinforces the importance of reducing intake of ready-to-eat foods as a strategy to combat rising rates of the disease, suggesting the risk is linear—the more ultraprocessed food consumed, the greater the potential for polyps to form—even after accounting for other risk factors like BMI and low fiber intake.