What Ultra-Processed Foods Are Doing to Your Muscles and Metabolism

Processed food are generally considered to be an unhealthy choice when compared to unprocessed foods. This isn’t completely accurate, all processing is not bad, but ultra-processed foods are a different matter.

Unfortunately, ultra-processed foods make up more than 50% of the diet of adults in the U.S., the U.K., and in Canada. Ultra-processed foods are high in fat, sugar, salt and calories and low in nutritional value, dietary fibre, protein, vitamins and minerals and should be limited.

Most foods, except fresh fruit and vegetables, have been processed to some degree.

Brazilian researchers have divided processed foods into four categories. The NOVA classification doesn’t include nutritional analysis, but divides processed foods based on the physical, biological, and chemical processes that takes food from its natural state into the final product.

Many processed foods can be a part of a healthy diet, and make meal preparation easier. However, the Standard American Diet now consists of 50%, or more, ultra-processed foods. This can lead to many chronic health concerns. There is plenty of research proving that people who eat traditional plant-based diets that focus on unprocessed, and minimally processed, plant foods are the healthiest and live disease free the longest.

High-Quality Carbohydrates are Key to Longevity

Unprocessed for muscle health

Research from the Radiological Society of America has reinforced the emphasis on eating unprocessed. They found that people who eat more ultra-processed foods have more fat within their leg muscles, even when accounting for calories, fat intake, and exercise.

The research included 615 people, 275 men and 340 women, with an average age of 60. All of the adults had a BMI of 27, which is considered overweight. The participants ate a diet that was 41% ultra-processed foods, less than the average for American adults. The researchers found that increasing ultra-processed food consumption lead to an increase in intramuscular fat and a corresponding increased risk of knee osteoarthritis.

According to the study’s lead author, Zehra Akkaya, M.D., at the University of California, San Francisco, Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging,

This research underscores the vital role of nutrition in muscle quality in the context of knee osteoarthritis. Addressing obesity is a primary objective and frontline treatment for knee osteoarthritis, yet the findings from this research emphasize that dietary quality warrants greater attention, and weight loss regimens should take into account diet quality beyond caloric restriction and exercise.

More bad news.

Another study published in Nature Metabolism shows another surprising consequence of ultra-processed foods. Researchers fed healthy adults two separate meals with the same nutrients. They were identical in calories, protein, fat, carbohydrates, fibre, sodium and water content. If you only looked at the nutritional content they were the same, but researchers wanted to know if processing made any difference.

It turns out it does.

After eating the processed meal researchers measured glucose, insulin and other metabolic markers. Study author Zach Hutelin says,

The two meals are matched within 1% of carbs, fat, proteins, calories, water, and salt. If these meals had a nutritional label, they would be practically identical. We were shocked when every single metabolic metric differed.What we noticed with the ultraprocessed food is that insulin response was much higher and blood sugar stays a little bit higher for a little bit longer.

This study is small, but it does highlight the differences in how one meal can make a difference when it comes to our health. Even when meals have similar calories and nutrients, food processing can change our metabolic responses. Which means that everything that happens to our food matters to our health.

Eat your FN-GBOMBS.

You are what you eat.

As we age, it becomes more difficult to build and maintain our muscle mass. Make it easier by eating a healthy diet of minimally processed foods and doing at least two days of strength training.

Do you even lift?

The American College of Sports Medicine recommends training all major muscles groups twice a week for improved muscle function and health. Resistance training is critical throughout the lifespan to reduce mortality, manage cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes, reduce depression and improve sleep.

To get maximum benefits of exercise eat whole foods, mostly plants, and try to avoid the ultra-processed options. Your muscles and your metabolism will benefit.

Change your mind, change your health,

Shayla