The increasing trend in the consumption of ultra-processed food products is associated with a diet related to chronic diseases in Colombia-Evidence from national nutrition surveys 2005 and 2015

Gustavo Cediel; Elisa María Cadena; Pamela Vallejo; Diego Gaitán; Fabio Da Silva Gomes

doi:10.1371/journal.pgph.0001993

The increasing trend in the consumption of ultra-processed food products is associated with a diet related to chronic diseases in Colombia-Evidence from national nutrition surveys 2005 and 2015

PLOS Glob Public Health. 2024 Jan 11;4(1):e0001993. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgph.0001993. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Gustavo Cediel¹, Elisa María Cadena², Pamela Vallejo³, Diego Gaitán¹, Fabio Da Silva Gomes⁴

Affiliations

¹ Unidad de Problemáticas de Interés en Nutrición Pública, Grupo de Investigación Saberes Alimentarios, Escuela de Nutrición y Dietética, Universidad de Antioquia UdeA, Medellín, Colombia.
² Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Psychology, University of the Andes, Bogotá, Colombia.
³ Ministry of Health and Social Protection, Bogotá, Colombia.
⁴ Pan American Health Organization, Washington, D.C., United States of America.

Abstract

Introduction: Ultra-processed food products (UPF) have been related to chronic diseases (CD). Public health politics has been establishing strategies to decrease the consumption of these products in the country.

Objectives: i) To assess the trend of the consumption of UPF between 2005 and 2015. (ii) its association with sociodemographic factors and the overall dietary content of nutrients related to CD in 2015. (iii) to estimate the Population Attributable Fraction of unhealthy nutrient intake in Colombia in 2015 due to ultra-processed food consumption.

Methods: We used data from the first (2005) and the last (2015) National Surveys of the Nutritional Status in Colombia. Food consumption was assessed using a 24-hour food recall. The NOVA classification classified the food items according to the extent and purpose of industrial processing.

Results: The consumption of processed and UPF increased in Colombia between 2005 and 2015. In 2015, no significant differences were found in the consumption of UPF between men and women but significant differences by age, wealth index, area of residence, and ethnicity (p<0.001). A significant positive association was found between the dietary share of UPF and the content of CD-related nutrients such as free sugars, total fats, saturated fats, trans-fats, and sodium. The prevalence of excessive intake of all CD-related nutrients (according to WHO recommendations) increased across quintiles of the dietary share of UPF. With the reduction of UPF consumption to the level seen among the 20% lowest consumers [1.0% (0-4.5%) of the total energy from UPF], the prevalence of excessive nutrient intake was almost three-fourths lower for trans fats; around one third lower for free sugar and saturated fats, 26% lower for sodium and 15% lower for total fat.

Conclusions: In Colombia, the increasing trend in the consumption of UPF is associated with increasing intake of CD-related nutrients. Thus, reducing the consumption of UPF is a potentially effective way to achieve the nutritional goals of the WHO for the prevention of CD.

Copyright: © 2024 Cediel et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the “Vicerrectoria de Investigación de la Universidad de Antioquia” under the project number 2020-35090 where GC is the principal investigator and DG is coinvestigator. The Ministry of health and social protection of Colombia provide the database. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.