Small Servings, Big Consequences: Do Ultra‑Processed Foods Affect Odds of Premature Death?

Most students fall short to the appeal of microwave dinners, a cup of ramen, and energy drinks when those tight deadlines hit, but ultra‑processed foods (UPFs) known as industrially formulated products that are infused with additives, flavourings, and refined ingredients (Lane et al. 2024). At the moment, they make up a majority of diets in high‑income countries, but do these convenience foods actually end up affecting the long‑term risk of dying prematurely? Large cohort studies and recent meta‑analyses suggest that the outcome is not completely doomed, but evidence still suggests it matters.

The Spanish SUN cohort is an example of what happens when people eat a lot of ultra-processed foods, as they tracked 20,000 university graduates for about ten years. The people who ate the ultra-processed foods more than four servings per day had a sixty-two percent higher chance of dying from any cause compared to those who ate the least, which means that for every serving of ultra-processed food they ate their risk of dying went up by eighteen percent (Romero Ferreiro et al. 2021). Therefore, if someone goes from eating two servings to five servings per day, it does not simply act as a small change but actually adds up to significantly increase their risk of poor health.

Newer studies with larger cohorts of people have found different results, including a study from a 2024 analysis that looked at data from over 114,000 health professionals in the US, who were followed for more than thirty years. They ended up finding that people who ate the ultra-processed foods had a four percent higher chance of dying from any cause compared to those who ate the least (Cohen 2024). The overall effect was modest, but not entirely consistent for all types of ultra-processed foods, as processed meat, poultry, and seafood products like sausages, ham and hot dogs were associated with hazard ratios up to 1.13 for all‑cause mortality, while sugar‑sweetened and artificially sweetened drinks, dairy desserts, and ultra‑processed breakfast foods also contributed to higher risk (Fang et al. 2024). Figure 1 from this cohort illustrates that not all ultra‑processed foods are equally problematic, with processed meats clearly standing out from the other categories.

Figure 1. The mortality risk across combinations of ultra‑processed food (UPF) intake and overall diet quality (Alternative Healthy Eating Index‑2010, AHEI). Each dot shows the hazard ratio for a group defined by its UPF quartile (Q1–Q4) and AHEI quartile, compared with people who ate the least UPFs (Q1) and had the healthiest diets (AHEI Q4). The error bars show 95% confidence intervals after adjusting for age, lifestyle factors, and health history.

If we change perspectives from individual cohorts and look at a 2025 meta‑analysis that considered eighteen prospective studies including 1,148,387 participants and 173,107 deaths, a pattern is still visible. The study found that people who ate the most ultra-processed foods had a fifteen percent higher risk of all‑cause mortality, with evidence that eluded to an evidence of dose-response, where more ultra‑processed food corresponded to progressively higher risk (Liang et al. 2025).

Now a fifteen percent increase in risk does not necessarily mean that someone is fifteen percent more likely to risk death, it means that compared to a large population, those consuming the most ultra-processed foods will have more deaths over time than those who eat the least even after adjusting for smoking, BMI, and overall diet quality. For policymakers, this matters as small changes in relative risk applied to millions of people that regularly consume UPFs can add up to a lot of preventable deaths. For individuals, and especially students who eat a lot of frozen meals and processed meals, the data suggests that cutting back on the most heavily processed foods and replacing them with less processed foods is a realistic way to lead a longer life.

References

Cohen, Finn. 2024. “Can Ultra-Processed Foods Increase Mortality Risk? What We Know.” Healthline. Healthline Media. May 10, 2024. https://www.healthline.com/health-news/can-ultra-processed-foods-increase-mortality-risk-what-we-know#Takeaway.

Fang, Zhe, Sinara Laurini Rossato, Dong Hang, Neha Khandpur, Kai Wang, Chun-Han Lo, Walter C. Willett, Edward L. Giovannucci, and Mingyang Song. 2024. “Association of Ultra-Processed Food Consumption with All Cause and Cause Specific Mortality: Population Based Cohort Study.” BMJ 385 (8428): e078476. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2023-078476.

Lane, Melissa M., Elizabeth Gamage, Shutong Du, Deborah N. Ashtree, Amelia J. McGuinness, Sarah Gauci, Phillip Baker, et al. 2024. “Ultra-Processed Food Exposure and Adverse Health Outcomes: Umbrella Review of Epidemiological Meta-Analyses.” BMJ 384 (8419): e077310. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2023-077310.

Liang, Shuming, Yesheng Zhou, Qian Zhang, Shuang Yu, and Shanshan Wu. 2025. “Ultra-Processed Foods and Risk of All-Cause Mortality: An Updated Systematic Review and Dose-Response Meta-Analysis of Prospective Cohort Studies.” Systematic Reviews 14 (1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-025-02800-8.

Romero Ferreiro, Carmen, Cristina Martín-Arriscado Arroba, Pilar Cancelas Navia, David Lora Pablos, and Agustín Gómez de la Cámara. 2021. “Ultra-Processed Food Intake and All-Cause Mortality: DRECE Cohort Study.” Public Health Nutrition 2 (3): 1–28. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1368980021003256.