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Walk down almost any supermarket aisle in the world and most of what you see has something in common. It comes in a bright packet. It lasts for months. And it was built in a factory to be easy to eat a lot of.
A big new review has put a number on what that might cost. Researchers pulled together 51 long-term studies that followed about 8.8 million adults, some for as long as 32 years. The people who ate the most ultra-processed food had about a 24% higher risk of heart disease and heart events than the people who ate the least. That’s the headline link between ultra-processed food and heart disease, and it is worth understanding properly: what it means, what it doesn’t, and what anyone can do about it with no money and no spare time.
What the Study on Ultra-Processed Food and Heart Disease Found
The review was published in September 2026 in the journal Family Medicine and Community Health. The lead author is Dr. Xiao Liu, a physician at Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hospital in China. The studies came from the Americas, Europe, Asia and Oceania, so this is not a picture of one country’s eating habits.
Comparing the highest eaters with the lowest eaters, the researchers found higher risk of:
- Heart disease and heart events: about 24% higher
- Diabetes and metabolic syndrome: about 24% higher
- Obesity or overweight: about 23% higher
- Depression or anxiety: about 27% higher
- Digestive diseases: about 31% higher
- Cancer: about 12% higher
- High blood pressure: about 11% higher
- Death from any cause: about 18% higher
They also looked at what happens as the amount goes up. Every extra 100 grams a day of ultra-processed food was linked to about a 14% higher risk of heart events. For a sense of scale, 100 grams is roughly the weight of a large chocolate bar or a few slices of packaged bread. That is not a lot of food.
If you have read news reports of this study, you may have seen the 11% blood pressure figure described as a per-100-gram number. In the researchers’ own summary it isn’t. The 11% compares the heaviest eaters with the lightest. The per-100-gram figures are the ones for heart events, cancer, death and diabetes. Small detail, but the kind that gets bent as a story travels.
What “Ultra-Processed” Actually Means
Almost all food is processed in some way. Rice is milled. Milk is heated. Beans are dried. That isn’t what this research is about.
Ultra-processed foods are ready-to-eat or heat-and-serve products made mostly from ingredients you wouldn’t cook with at home. They usually carry added sugar, salt, fat and additives, and they are low in fibre, protein, vitamins and minerals. Think packet snacks, sugary drinks, instant noodles, biscuits and cakes, processed meats like hot dogs, and many ready meals.
A simple kitchen test works almost everywhere: if the ingredient list is long and full of words you couldn’t buy in a shop on their own, it’s probably ultra-processed. If it looks like something your grandmother would recognise as food, it probably isn’t.
We looked at one piece of that label before, in the eight food preservatives linked to high blood pressure, including the one that sounds the healthiest.
Does Ultra-Processed Food Cause Heart Disease, or Just Travel With It?
This is the honest part. The 51 studies are all observational. They watched what people ate and what happened to them. They did not assign anyone a diet. So they show a link, not proof of cause.
The researchers say so themselves. Every study relied on people reporting their own diets, which is never exact. And ultra-processed food tends to come bundled with other things, like long work hours, less sleep, less money and more stress. The authors write that these wider lifestyle patterns are difficult to fully adjust for. Their own conclusion is careful: cutting back on ultra-processed foods and replacing them with less-processed ones “may be relevant” for preventing chronic disease.
So is it all just correlation? Not quite. There is one small but very well-controlled experiment that fills in part of the gap, and it is the most surprising piece of this whole story.
The Experiment That Shows Why These Foods Don’t Fill You Up
In 2019, researchers at the US National Institutes of Health asked 20 adults to live in their research centre for four weeks. For two weeks they were served ultra-processed meals. For the other two weeks they were served meals made from whole foods. The two diets were matched for calories, sugar, fat, salt and fibre on the plate. People could eat as much or as little as they liked.
On the ultra-processed diet, people ate about 500 more calories a day. They ate faster. They gained about 0.9 kilograms in two weeks, and on the whole-food diet they lost about the same.
Here’s the part almost nobody mentions. When the volunteers rated the meals, they found both diets about equally pleasant. They didn’t enjoy the ultra-processed food more. They just ate more of it, and it satisfied them less.
That changes how to think about the whole aisle. The problem isn’t that these foods are irresistibly delicious and you are weak. It’s that they are built to go down fast and leave you wanting more, without ever quite doing the job food is supposed to do. You end up paying for more food and getting less of what food is for.
If you have ever felt like thoughts about food just won’t switch off, that’s a related thing with its own name. We wrote about it in what food noise is and why it isn’t weakness.
Simple Swaps That Cost Little or Nothing
None of this means you have to buy expensive “clean” food or cook for hours. In many places ultra-processed food is the cheapest and fastest option, and that is not a personal failing. The goal is not perfect. The goal is a little less, a little more often.
- Change one thing, not everything. Pick the one packet you reach for most often and swap just that.
- Lean on the cheap whole foods. Rice, oats, beans, lentils, eggs, bananas and whatever vegetables are in season are some of the least expensive foods almost anywhere, and none of them are ultra-processed.
- Drink water instead of one sugary drink a day. For many people this is the single biggest source of ultra-processed calories.
- Slow down. In the experiment, speed was part of the problem. Put the fork or spoon down between bites. Give your body time to notice it’s full.
- Cook a double batch. A pot of beans or soup on a free evening turns into a quick meal on a busy one, which is exactly when the packet usually wins.
Paying for What Doesn’t Satisfy
There is a question in one of the oldest books in the world, first asked of people who were tired, hungry and a long way from home. Why do you spend your money on what isn’t bread, and your hard work on what doesn’t satisfy? In that old book, the one asking is God, and it isn’t a scolding. It’s an invitation: come and eat what is good. It even says you can come with no money at all.
It’s strange how exactly that fits a shelf of food engineered to be eaten fast and never quite fill you. The answer offered back then wasn’t shame. It was a better table.
A Better Table, One Meal at a Time
You don’t need to fear the supermarket. You don’t need to throw out your cupboard or feel guilty about the noodles you had last night. A 24% higher risk is a real reason to pay attention, and it is not a sentence.
Tomorrow, pick one meal. Make it with food that looks like food. Eat it slowly. Notice whether it holds you longer than the packet did. That small experiment, repeated, is how most lasting change actually happens.
Discussion Question
Which do you think makes it hardest to cut back on ultra-processed food where you live: the price, the time it takes to cook, or how easy it is to find? Share your answer in the comments below.
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“A review of 51 studies and 8.8 million adults linked the most ultra-processed food to about 24% higher heart disease risk. The surprising bit: in a controlled trial, people didn’t enjoy it more. They just ate more. https://bgodinspired.com/index.php/health-and-wellness/ultra-processed-food-and-heart-disease/”
“I always thought I just had no willpower around snacks. Turns out these foods are built to go down fast and not fill you up. One swap at a time. https://bgodinspired.com/index.php/health-and-wellness/ultra-processed-food-and-heart-disease/”
Questions People Ask About Ultra-Processed Food and Heart Disease
Does eating ultra-processed food increase the risk of heart disease?
A 2026 review in Family Medicine and Community Health combined 51 long-term studies of about 8.8 million adults and found that people who ate the most ultra-processed food had about a 24% higher risk of heart disease and heart events than people who ate the least. These studies show a strong link but cannot prove on their own that ultra-processed food is the cause, because diet was self-reported and other lifestyle factors are hard to separate out.
How much ultra-processed food is too much?
No safe limit has been set. The 2026 review of 51 studies found that each extra 100 grams a day of ultra-processed food, roughly the weight of a large chocolate bar, was linked to about a 14% higher risk of heart events. That suggests risk rises steadily with the amount eaten, so eating less of it is likely better than eating more.
What counts as an ultra-processed food?
Ultra-processed foods are ready-to-eat or heat-and-serve products made through extensive industrial processing, usually with added sugar, salt, fat and additives, and low in fibre, protein, vitamins and minerals. Common examples are packet snacks, sugary drinks, instant noodles, biscuits, cakes, processed meats and many ready meals. Foods like rice, oats, beans, eggs, fruit and vegetables are not ultra-processed.
Why do people eat more when they eat ultra-processed food?
A 2019 controlled trial at the US National Institutes of Health fed 20 adults ultra-processed meals for two weeks and whole-food meals for two weeks, matched for calories, sugar, fat, salt and fibre. On the ultra-processed diet people ate about 500 more calories a day and ate faster, even though they rated both diets about equally pleasant. Ultra-processed food appears to be easier to eat quickly and less filling, rather than simply tastier.
What is a cheap way to eat less ultra-processed food?
The cheapest approach is to swap one frequently eaten packaged item at a time for low-cost whole foods such as rice, oats, beans, lentils, eggs, bananas and seasonal vegetables, and to replace one sugary drink a day with water. Cooking a large batch of beans or soup when there is free time also makes a quick whole-food meal available on busy days.
Source: Liu X. et al., Family Medicine and Community Health, 2026 (DOI: 10.1136/fmch-2026-003925). Controlled trial: Hall K.D. et al., Cell Metabolism, 2019.
