Cycling UK Forum

Cyclothesist wrote: ↑14 May 2024, 1:47pm

Psamathe wrote: ↑14 May 2024, 1:41pm

Pinhead wrote: ↑14 May 2024, 1:28pm Why would it ?????

Generally systems of classification will be designed to be useful. Already the simplistic UPF classification is proving to be misleading eg UPFs are bad, higher consumption of UPF was associated with a higher risk of multimorbidity of cancer and cardiometabolic diseases. Except research (2023) is now showing vegetarian & vewgan UFPs do not show a similar effect. So the UPF classification could mislead some people.

Ian

Interesting. Do you have a link to the paper? I'm speculating that maybe UPFs are still bad but a vegetarian/vegan diet is protective against their harmful effects?

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lane ... 4/fulltext

For those tl;dr

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7762(23)00190-4/fulltext wrote: Our findings suggest that higher consumption of UPFs increases the risk of cancer and cardiometabolic multimorbidity.
...
The remaining groups—sweets and desserts, savory snacks, plant-based alternatives, ready-to-eat/heat mixed dishes and other unspecified ultra-processed foods—showed no association with the risk of multimorbidity

(Full paper available free on the site linked to)

Ian

Thank you for posting the link. That's a fascinating read. It's a clear signal that meat UPFs and sweetened beverage UPFs are hazards. There goes my Pepsi Max .
It's a pity that they haven't shown data relating UPFs to subsequent obesity. I suspect there is a link - I'll see if I can dig anything up on-line.* Very clear signals for UPFs association with Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and to a lesser degree cancer.
I'm surprised sweets, crisps and salty snacks came out as equivocal.
The UK diet doesn't look too good with well over 44% of calories coming from UPFs (men worse (48% ) than women here). The study group contains a lot of health conscious people too, it's not a random selection so the population UPF average consumption is likely much higher.

* Good meta analysis here with many papers linking UPF consumption to obesity and comorbidities.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8532572/

I think care needs to be taken in not reading too much into these studies at the moment. The definition of a UPF still needs attention, a product such as olive oil could range from minimally processed to ultra processed and there doesn't seem much attention to confounding factors.
Maybe you can keep the odd Pepsi Max if the rest of the diet was made up of minimally processed foods.

Cyclothesist wrote: ↑14 May 2024, 3:29pm ...
It's a pity that they haven't shown data relating UPFs to subsequent obesity. I suspect there is a link - I'll see if I can dig anything up on-line.

...

* Good meta analysis here with many papers linking UPF consumption to obesity and comorbidities.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8532572/

There's a systematic review in the BMJ this year which included obesity as an outcome measure. I'll add a link later if no-one else has.

Jonathan

re_cycler wrote: ↑14 May 2024, 3:41pm I think care needs to be taken in not reading too much into these studies at the moment. The definition of a UPF still needs attention, something such as olive oil could range from minimally processed to ultra processed and there doesn't seem much attention to confounding factors.
Maybe you can keep the odd Pepsi Max if the rest of the diet was made up of minimally processed foods.

I would agree but also the TV/radio programs describing UPFs and "what they are" generally say to look at the list of ingredients and look for an number of things you don't recognise, things like flavour enhancers, colours, emulsifiers, emulsifying salts, sweeteners, thickeners, and anti-foaming, bulking, carbonating, foaming, gelling, glazing agents, etc.

I wonder if the uncertainty about exactly what a UPF is, which are OK and which harmful, etc. is already making the term un-useful and misleading. At some point, even if the term is better defined, and at some point changing the definition wont change the public use of the term.

Ian

Psamathe wrote: ↑14 May 2024, 3:56pm

re_cycler wrote: ↑14 May 2024, 3:41pm I think care needs to be taken in not reading too much into these studies at the moment. The definition of a UPF still needs attention, something such as olive oil could range from minimally processed to ultra processed and there doesn't seem much attention to confounding factors.
Maybe you can keep the odd Pepsi Max if the rest of the diet was made up of minimally processed foods.

I would agree but also the TV/radio programs describing UPFs and "what they are" generally say to look at the list of ingredients and look for an number of things you don't recognise, things like flavour enhancers, colours, emulsifiers, emulsifying salts, sweeteners, thickeners, and anti-foaming, bulking, carbonating, foaming, gelling, glazing agents, etc.

I wonder if the uncertainty about exactly what a UPF is, which are OK and which harmful, etc. is already making the term un-useful and misleading. At some point, even if the term is better defined, and at some point changing the definition wont change the public use of the term.

Ian

I totally agree, the term already seems to have become the latest fad health target for all the usual commentators.

I suspect that's because a lot of people are looking for what has gone wrong with our diet/environment to cause an epidemic of obesity and associated comorbidities. Take a look at school pictures of kids and adults from the 1970s and compare them with now. The change is big and obvious. UPFs may not be the only cause but there's enough evidence to say they are part of the problem.

I can only really remember one kid who was overweight at school, and he was German! I'm thinking maybe outdoors play is also a factor in the obesity epidemic. I can't remember being indoors hardly at all when I was a teenager, as soon as I got out of school I couldn't wait to get out and play. We got up to all sorts, up trees, on the river (which was really dangerous), fishing in the canal etc. To me it seems like kids have lost all sense of adventure, and are probably too afraid now to go out and get down and dirty! Also we'd take off on the bikes with 50p and no one knew where we were going or when we'd be back. We were trusted to be respectful and responsible for ourselves.

We used to have competitions to see who could come home the filthiest! Got a hiding for it sometimes, but it was great fun! Where's the fun gone!?

Jdsk wrote: ↑14 May 2024, 3:52pm

Cyclothesist wrote: ↑14 May 2024, 3:29pm ...
It's a pity that they haven't shown data relating UPFs to subsequent obesity. I suspect there is a link - I'll see if I can dig anything up on-line.

...

* Good meta analysis here with many papers linking UPF consumption to obesity and comorbidities.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8532572/

There's a systematic review in the BMJ this year which included obesity as an outcome measure. I'll add a link later if no-one else has.

"Ultra-processed food exposure and adverse health outcomes: umbrella review of epidemiological meta-analyses"
Lane et al (2024)
https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2023-077310

Jonathan

Thanks Jonathon.
I think the final sentence in the conclusions summed it up best.
"They also inform and provide support for urgent mechanistic research."

The info-graphic seems to have the outcomes all over the place.

Jdsk wrote: ↑15 May 2024, 10:19am

Jdsk wrote: ↑14 May 2024, 3:52pm

Cyclothesist wrote: ↑14 May 2024, 3:29pm ...
It's a pity that they haven't shown data relating UPFs to subsequent obesity. I suspect there is a link - I'll see if I can dig anything up on-line.

...

* Good meta analysis here with many papers linking UPF consumption to obesity and comorbidities.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8532572/

There's a systematic review in the BMJ this year which included obesity as an outcome measure. I'll add a link later if no-one else has.

"Ultra-processed food exposure and adverse health outcomes: umbrella review of epidemiological meta-analyses"
Lane et al (2024)
https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2023-077310

Jonathan

Thanks Jonathan. UPFs do appear to be bad for us but their effects are fairly subtle just nudging the hazard ratio up 10 or 20%. I was expecting a bigger effect. Something else must be going on too to account for the explosion of obesity and Type 2 DM. It's a most interesting and concerning puzzle.

Cyclothesist wrote: ↑17 May 2024, 10:34am ...
UPFs do appear to be bad for us but their effects are fairly subtle just nudging the hazard ratio up 10 or 20%. I was expecting a bigger effect. Something else must be going on too to account for the explosion of obesity and Type 2 DM. It's a most interesting and concerning puzzle.

For a few decades my teaching on nutrition has been very simple:
• Macronutrients, micronutrients, total energy intake, current problems in the UK, current problems elsewhere.
• Connection to other diseases: atherosclerosis, metabolic, musculoskeletal, psychological etc...
• Assisted nutrition in specific conditions
• Public health issues: inequality, taxation and other governmental interventions, the food industry, the "wellbeing" industry...
• Why evidence is so poor and research so difficult...

It's now got much harder because of:
• The involvement of vitamin D in diseases other than rickets and osteomalacia
• The enormous variation in gut biome composition
• Whatever it is that ultra processed foods are doing

Yes, interesting and concerning.

Jonathan

That's a good systematic approach. A lot of those factors have inflammation as a common component. We do seem to be living in an increasingly obesogenic stressy pro-inflammatory environment.

Cyclothesist wrote: ↑17 May 2024, 10:57am That's a good systematic approach. A lot of those factors have inflammation as a common component. We do seem to be living in an increasingly obesogenic stressy pro-inflammatory environment.

Thanks

Yes, inflammation is sitting under a lot of this. And it's very hard to persuade students to include that when we're talking about atherosclerosis: I'm not sure why this is.

On the stress: they get a strong recommendation to read some Marmot!:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Marmot
https://www.instituteofhealthequity.org ... es-reports

Jonathan

Nearholmer wrote: ↑12 May 2024, 6:13pmThe first thing I noticed when I started “proper bike rides” again after nearly three decades of short commutes, family rides and the odd jaunt, was that it made me insanely hungry

Slowroad wrote: ↑12 May 2024, 8:51pmI find that on a cycle tour my appetite is somewhat depressed, which seems weird

Exercising within your fitness ability increases appetite, but over exercise reduces it, and can kill it dead completely. With the benefit of hindsight, I know now that loss of appetite is the most sensitive warning sign I have that I'm doing to much, or at risk of it.
Kreider lists loss of appetite as a symptom of overtraining, and Elder & Roberts comment: "energy intake was significantly less after high-intensity exercise compared with moderate-intensity exercise"

Pebble wrote: ↑12 May 2024, 8:23pmtheress not much data - but I did 12,500 mile that year, normally I would do 6500. So an extra 6,000 mile, that,s an extra 16.4 per day, if we attribute 35kcal per mile (which is probably high) then that would only be an extra 574kcal per day. which is nothing

I was eating ridculous amounts, wife is a baking fanatic and bored at home she was baking every day, the puddings I was having eating every night would be 1000 kcal, and then there was the cake. I seemed to be eating non stop and not putting on weight - it was like being a teenager again

Recording calorie intake is easy, but it takes a lot of care & diligence. Unless you're cooking everything yourself and measuring the quantities of everything it's easy to be misled.

awavey wrote: ↑13 May 2024, 11:24pmliterally the easiest way to lose weight, other than dont eat junk all the time, is just eat smaller portions.

Yo-yo dieters typically complain that dieting makes them feel miserable, and that's my experience: it feels like my body is trying to reduce my metabolic rate to match the lower calorie intake rather than burn fat to make up the deficit. This seems reasonable to me, in a time of famine, reducing your energy demand rather than burning up fat reserves would appear to be the better strategy for survival.

On the other hand, regular exercise is continually reminding your body that it needs its current metabolic rate as it is, and induces it to burn fat to fuel the exercise rather than trying to conserve energy. I note how many I've seen on TV who delight in the effortless loss of weight after taking up regular exercise.

Professor Tim Spector recently commented that reducing calorie intake forces your metabolic rate down (from 4m35s).

Pinhead wrote: ↑14 May 2024, 1:28pmWhy would it ?????

The purpose of classification is to define the difference between the good and the bad. If subsequent research finds a good item in the bad category or vice versa then definitions and classifications need to change.

Jdsk wrote: ↑17 May 2024, 11:09ama strong recommendation to read some Marmot!

I read his Status Syndrome. It's interesting that status is associated with increased morbidity & mortality independently of income.