What did you have for breakfast this morning? Maybe you treated yourself to a fry-up with all the trimmings, or maybe you opted for a “healthy” fruit yogurt, cereal, or a piece of toast. Well, according to new research, all of these breakfasts may be causing us to age prematurely.

In the U.S., ultra-processed foods account for almost 60 percent of our energy intake, according to research published in The BMJ. This includes packaged snacks, carbonated drinks, instant noodles, ready meals and most products that contain a long list of unrecognizable ingredients, preservatives, emulsifiers, sweeteners and artificial flavorings.

Numerous studies have linked ultra-processed foods to an increased risk of various diseases, including heart disease, diabetes and bowel cancer, as well as obesity. Now research suggests that they may also make us age faster.

When we think of aging, most of us think of the number of years we have been alive. This is known as our chronological age. However, we also have a second age: our biological age. This describes the gradual decline in efficiency and functionality of our body’s cells and tissues. And, unlike chronological age, it can be sped up, slowed down, and even reversed.

To explore how this biological age might be influenced by what we eat, researchers from the Scientific Institute for Research, Hospitalization and Healthcare (IRCCS) in Italy, in collaboration with the LUM University of Casamassima, analyzed data from over 22,000 participants.

The data included detailed food questionnaires as well as analysis of over 30 different molecules in the blood that are known to represent our biological age. What they found was that people who ate more ultra-processed foods generally had a biological age that was older than their chronological age. In other words, eating ultra-processed foods was associated with a significant acceleration of biological aging.

“Our data show that a high consumption of ultra-processed foods not only has a negative impact on health in general, but could also accelerate aging itself, suggesting a connection that goes beyond the poor nutritional quality of these foods,” the study’s first author, Simona Esposito, a researcher at the Research Unit of Epidemiology and Prevention at Italy’s Scientific Institute for Research, Hospitalization and Healthcare, said in a statement.

However, the exact mechanisms behind these associations are not yet clear. “Besides being nutritionally inadequate, being rich in sugars, salt and saturated or trans fats, these foods undergo intense industrial processing that actually alters their food matrix, with the consequent loss of nutrients and fiber,” co-author Marialaura Bonaccio, a nutritional epidemiologist at the institute, said in a statement.

“This can have important consequences for a series of physiological functions, including glucose metabolism, and the composition and functionality of the gut microbiota. Also, these products are often wrapped in plastic packaging, thus becoming vehicles of substances toxic to the body.”

It’s important to note here that ultra-processed foods don’t only include the brightly colored sodas and long-life deli meats we tend to associate with the word. In fact, the researchers said that seemingly “harmless” products, such as packaged bread, fruit yogurt, and many sweetened breakfast cereals, were also associated with this acceleration of biological aging.

“Some nutrient-dense packaged foods can be classified as ultra-processed, and this suggest the need of guiding people toward dietary choices that address also the degree of food processing,” co-author Licia Iacoviello, director of the Research Unit of Epidemiology and Prevention at the IRCCS Neuromed and full professor of Hygiene at LUM in Casamassima, said in a statement. “This study prompts us once again to reevaluate the current dietary recommendations.”

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Reference

Esposito, S., Gialluisi, A., Di Castelnuovo, A., Costanzo, S., Pepe, A., Ruggiero, E., De Curtis, A., Persichillo, M., Cerletti, C., Donati, M. B., De Gaetano, G., Iacoviello, L., Bonaccio, M., Iacoviello, L., De Gaetano, G., Donati, M. B., Cerletti, C., Bonaccio, M., Bonanni, A., … Bonanni, A. (2024). Ultra-processed food consumption is associated with the acceleration of biological aging in the Moli-sani Study. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajcnut.2024.10.006