Ultra-processed diets cause excess calorie intake and weight gain: An inpatient randomized controlled trial of ad libitum food intake
By Kevin D. Hall, Alexis Ayuketah, R. Brychta, H. Cai, Thomas M Cassimatis, Kong Y. Chen, S. Chung, Elise Costa, A. Courville, Valerie L. Darcey and 15 more. Cell Metabolism, 2019
793 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Summary We investigated whether ultra-processed foods affect energy intake in 20 weight-stable adults, aged (mean±SE) 31.2±1.6 y and BMI=27±1.5 kg/m2. Subjects were admitted to the NIH Clinical Center and randomized to receive either ultra-processed or unprocessed diets for 2 weeks immediately followed by the alternate diet for 2 weeks. Meals were designed to be matched for presented calories, energy density, macronutrients, sugar, sodium, and fiber. Subjects were instructed to consume as much or as little as desired. Energy intake was greater during the ultra-processed diet (508±106 kcal/d; p=0.0001), with increased consumption of carbohydrate (280±54 kcal/d; p<0.0001) and fat (230±53 kcal/d; p=0.0004) but not protein (−2±12 kcal/d; p=0.85). Weight changes were highly correlated with energy intake (r=0.8, p<0.0001) with participants gaining 0.9±0.3 kg (p=0.009) during the ultra-processed diet and losing 0.9±0.3 kg (p=0.007) during the unprocessed diet. Limiting consumption of ultra-processed foods may be an effective strategy for obesity prevention and treatment.
Subfields: Physiology, Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a2672b8e8b8e2f188af4aa4fac9bf6292a04b9c8
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Citations in the corpus
- Consumption of ultra-processed foods and health status: a systematic review and meta-analysis (2020, background): “recently(47) conducted a randomised controlled trial on twenty weight-stable adults who were randomised to receive either ultra-processed or unprocessed ad libitum diets for 2 weeks.”
- Worldwide trends in underweight and obesity from 1990 to 2022: a pooled analysis of 3663 population-representative studies with 222 million children, adolescents, and adults (2024, neutral): “31,32 In some countries, equitable economic and agricultural policies and food programmes have improved the quality of nutrition, especially for the poor, 33–36 resulting in gains in height, whereas elsewhere weight gain occurred without substantial height gain, leading to increasing obesity.”
- 2021 Dietary Guidance to Improve Cardiovascular Health: A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association (2021, background): “80 Recent prospective studies have also found that high compared with low intake of ultra-processed foods is associated with greater risk of type 2 diabetes, 81 incident CVD, 82,83 and all-cause mortality.”
- Ultra-Processed Foods and Health Outcomes: A Narrative Review (2020, neutral): “Study Details UPF Exposure Outcomes Results Juul 2018 [59] Cross-sectional (2005–2014) USA Adults 20–64 years (15,977) Individual (National sample) UPF % total E intake (quintiles) [NOVA.2014] [29] 2 available 24-h recall or 1 day otherwise BMI classified in overweight and obesity (BMI ≥ 25), obesit”