Diets Higher in Ultra-Processed Foods Raise Risk for Rheumatoid Arthritis

TOPLINE:

Middle-aged adults who consume more ultra-processed foods have an elevated risk for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) that is mediated in part through circulating biomarkers.

METHODOLOGY: 

• Investigators conducted a retrospective cohort study of 207,012 middle-aged adults without RA from the UK Biobank who completed 24-hour dietary recalls.
• Foods and beverages were classified as (1) unprocessed or minimally processed foods, (2) processed culinary ingredients, (3) processed foods, or (4) ultra-processed foods (eg, soft drinks, sweet or savory packaged snacks, reconstituted meat products, pre-prepared frozen dishes).
• The main outcome was the incident RA based on hospital diagnoses.

TAKEAWAY:

• Overall, 0.9% of participants received an RA diagnosis during a median follow-up of about 12 years.
• Relative to peers in the lowest quintile of ultra-processed food consumption, participants in the highest quintile had a 17% greater adjusted risk for RA.
• The risk rose across quintile (P < .05) and increased by 6% with each standard deviation increase in ultra-processed food intake.
• Mediation analyses suggested that inflammatory, lipid, and liver enzyme biomarkers explained 3.1%-14.8% of the association between ultra-processed food intake and RA risk.
• Findings were similar regardless of participants’ age, sex, body mass index, smoking status, household income, and healthy diet score.

IN PRACTICE: 

“Lower [ultra-processed food] consumption is recommended to reduce RA incidence,” the authors wrote, noting that up to half of the food consumed in the United Kingdom now falls into the ultra-processed category. “Dietary guidelines should prominently feature the detrimental effects of [ultra-processed foods], and recommendations to curtail their consumption should be integrated into public health initiatives, to mitigate the risk of RA,” they added.

SOURCE:

The study was led by Haodong Zhao, Soochow University, Suzhou, China, and was published online in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 

LIMITATIONS:

Limitations included possible recall and social desirability biases, potential residual confounding, and uncertain causality of the observed associations.

DISCLOSURES:

The study was funded by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China and other institutions. The authors reported no conflicts of interest.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.