Abstract
Ultra-processed food (UPF) can be harmful to the population’s health. To establish associations between UPF and health outcomes, food consumption can be assessed using availability data, such as purchase lists or household budget surveys. The aim of this systematic review was to search studies that related UPF availability with noncommunicable diseases or their risk factors. PRISMA guidelines were used. Searches were performed in PubMed, EBSCO, Scopus and Web of Science in February 2021. The search strategy included terms related to exposure (UPF) and outcomes (noncommunicable diseases and their risk factors). Studies that assessed only food consumption at an individual level and did not present health outcomes were excluded. Two reviewers conducted the selection process, and a third helped when disagreement occurred. The Newcastle–Ottawa Scale was used to assess the studies’ quality; 998 records were analyzed. All 11 eligible studies were ecological and assessed overweight and obesity as a health outcome, only one showed no positive association with UPF availability. Two studies included the prevalence of diabetes as an outcome, however no significant association was found with UPF availability. Studies relating UPF availability and health outcomes are focused on overweight and obesity. It is necessary to further explore the relationship between other health outcomes and UPF availability using purchase or sales data.
Highlights
Over time, changes in the food environment lead to modifications in the population’s health [1]
The search strategy was related to exposure and outcomes of interest
Three eligible studies were found with backward citation tracking and no other articles were located through the grey literature search (Figure 1)
Summary
Changes in the food environment lead to modifications in the population’s health [1]. UPF are described as “processed ingredients typically combined with the sophisticated use of additives to make them edible, palatable and habit forming” [5,6,7]. This definition dates from 2010, before this, these foods were already referred to in the literature, either as an independent food group or as particular foods. Food processing often leads to increased nutrient bioavailability, either for beneficial (lycopene from tomato) or deleterious effect, such as the increase in the proportion of sugars [8,9]. Processed and UPF are generally less satiating than fresh foods [10,11]
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