Ultra-processed foods may raise diabetes risk

New Delhi: Love to binge on ultra-processed foods like cake, biscuits, bread, yoghurt, and ice creams? Beware, these foods rich in emulsifiers like xantham and guar gum may raise your risk of diabetes, finds a study.

Emulsifiers, the most commonly used additives, are often added to processed and packaged foods to make them look more appealing, boost their taste and texture as well as increase shelf life.

The study appearing in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology linked emulsifiers including mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids, carrageenans, modified starches, lecithins, phosphates, celluloses, gums, and pectins to the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. Previously emulsifiers have been linked to cancers of the breast and prostate.

Researchers from France’s INRAE - National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment studied the relationships between the dietary intakes of emulsifiers, assessed over a follow-up period of 14 years, and the risk of developing type 2 diabetes in a large study including 104,139 adults between 2009 and 2023.

They diagnosed about 1,056 cases of diabetes as a result of chronic exposure to some emulsifiers.

These were carrageenans (3 per cent increased risk per increment of 100 mg per day); tripotassium phosphate (15 per cent increased risk per increment of 500 mg per day); mono- and diacetyl tartaric acid esters of mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids (4 per cent increased risk per increment of 100 mg per day); sodium citrate (4 per cent increased risk per increment of 500 mg per day); guar gum (11 per cent increased risk per increment of 500 mg per day); gum arabic (3 per cent increased risk per increment of 1,000 mg per day) and xanthan gum (8 per cent increased risk per increment of 500 mg per day).

"These findings are issued from a single observational study for the moment, and cannot be used on their own to establish a causal relationship. They need to be replicated in other epidemiological studies worldwide and supplemented with toxicological and interventional experimental studies, to further inform the mechanisms linking these food additive emulsifiers and the onset of type 2 diabetes," explained Mathilde Touvier, Research Director at Inserm, and Bernard Srour, Junior Professor at INRAE -- lead authors of the study.

“However, our results represent key elements to enrich the debate on re-evaluating the regulations around the use of additives in the food industry, in order to better protect consumers,”they said.