Ultra-processed foods and cancer

In this week’s The BMJ (doi:10.1136/bmj.k322), Fiolet and colleagues report a direct association between intake of ultra-processed food and incidence of total cancer and breast cancer.1 They used data from a population based prospective cohort of 104 980 middle aged French women and men. This web based cohort study regularly evaluates habitual dietary intake through repeated dietary recalls, uses novel research methods to bypass the increasing challenges in recruiting and retaining study participants, and efficiently leverages administrative data to validate cancer outcomes.

As the global consumption of highly processed foods increases,2 understanding the health impact of these foods has become a relevant and timely topic. Results from this study support the claim that the shift in the world’s food supply to highly processed foods may partly account for increasing trends in the incidence of non-communicable diseases, including cancer.3 Given the complexity in defining the …