Ultra-processed food intake in association with BMI change and risk of overweight and obesity: A  prospective analysis of the French NutriNet-Santé cohort

The objective of this study was to investigate the associations between UPF consumption and the risk of overweight and obesi ty, as well as change in body mass index (BMI), in a large French cohort. Methods and findingsA total of 110,260 adult participants ( ≥18 years old, mean baseline age = 43.1 [SD 14.6] years; 78.2% women) from the French prospective population-based NutriNet-Santé cohort (2009–2019) were included. Dietary intakes were collected at baseline using repeated and validated 24-hour dietary records linked to a food composition databa se that included>3,500 different food items, each categorized according to their degree of processing by the NOVA classification. Associations between the proportion of UPF in the diet and BMI change during follow-up were assessed using linear mixed models. Associations with risk of overweight and obesity were assessed using Cox proportional hazard models. After adjusting for age, sex, educational level, marital status, physical activity, smoking status, alcohol intake, number of 24-hour dietary records, and energy intake, we observed a positive association between UPF intake and gain in BMI ( β Time × UPF = 0.02 for an absolute increment of 10 in the percentage of UPF in the diet,P
Source: PLoS Medicine - Category: Internal Medicine Authors: Source Type: research