Consuming more ultra-processed foods (UPF) is closely linked with higher blood glucose levels in people with type 2 diabetes, a team of researchers in nutritional sciences, kinesiology and health education at the University of Texas in the US has found.

In a paper recently published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the team described how having more UPF laden with additives can lead to higher average blood glucose levels over a period of months.

The study found that the more UPF by weight in a person’s diet, the worse their blood glucose control was and the more minimally processed or unprocessed foods in a person’s diet, the better their control was.

Recent studies have indicated that eating more UPFs is linked to higher rates of cardiovascular disease, obesity, sleep disorders, anxiety, depression and early death. These foods are typically higher in added sugars and sodium, but the researchers concluded that the A1C increases were not about merely added sugar and sodium, or they would have correlated with the tools that measure overall nutritional quality in the diet. 

Synthetic flavours, added colours, emulsifiers, artificial sweeteners and other artificial ingredients might be in part to blame, hypothesised Erin Hudson, a graduate student author of the paper, and this would suggest that dietary guidelines may need to begin to place more emphasis on ultra-processed foods.