Every bite brings you one step closer to the grave: Don't even touch it to your mouth!

Crackers, ready-made meals, boxed drinks you snack on during the day… Each one could be part of a bigger danger than it seems.

A large-scale meta-analysis led by the University of São Paulo in Brazil, covering more than 240,000 people, found that every 10% increase in ultra-processed food consumption increases the risk of premature death from any cause by 3%.

"DOES NOT CONTAIN REAL FOOD"

Research co-author Prof. Carlos Augusto Monteiro emphasized that this relationship is particularly pronounced among individuals aged 30-69. According to Monteiro's NOVA classification, ultra-processed foods contain almost no "real food" at all; instead, they are prepared with chemically processed ingredients, sweeteners, and synthetic additives. The goal: to create addictive, delicious, and shelf-stable products.

Similar results were obtained in other studies published in 2024. According to these studies:

The risk of anxiety disorder is 53%,

The risk of obesity is 55%,

The risk of type 2 diabetes is 40%,

41% risk of sleep disturbance

And the risk of depression or early death can increase by 20%.

Researchers say that even an increase of just one serving per day can trigger these risks. In the US, the situation is even worse: 55% of the average person's calories come from ultra-processed foods. According to the study, if this ratio were reduced to zero, 124,000 premature deaths could have been prevented in 2017 alone.

Although some experts emphasize that these data do not establish a clear "cause-and-effect" relationship, similar findings repeated across different countries and cultures suggest that ultra-processed foods are not just "innocent bystanders."