Food Processing Level May Affect the Body’s Metabolic Response
A new study shows that two meals with nearly identical calories and nutritional composition can trigger different metabolic responses. In the experiment, the ultra-processed meal caused a greater rise in insulin, and blood sugar remained elevated for a longer period after consumption.
A new study shows that two meals with nearly identical calories and nutritional composition can produce different metabolic responses. In this experiment, the ultra-processed meal caused a greater increase in insulin and blood sugar remained high for a longer period of time after consuming it.
According to Ambassador Arjan, quoted by sciencealert, you have probably heard about ultra-processed foods and know that these products are usually not the healthiest food choices.
These industrially produced foods are increasingly associated with an increased risk of disease. Some studies also show that they may affect the way we think and harm our mental health.
Given the troubling connections scientists have found between these foods and various health outcomes, we might think that ultra-processed foods are unhealthy simply because they're loaded with nutrients of little nutritional value. But what if the story is more complicated than this?
"We know that most highly processed foods are high in fat and sugar and low in fiber and protein," says neuroscientist Alex DeFelice-Antonio of Virginia Tech.
“But if we artificially hold all these factors constant,” he asks, “could food processing itself make a difference in metabolic outcomes?”
According to surprising findings published in the journal Nature Metabolism, the answer appears to be yes.
In this study, DiFelice-Antonio and his research group recruited 57 healthy adults with a normal weight and an average age of 26 years. Among them, 32 people participated in the food experiment. These people ate two different meals on two separate days and the order of meals was determined randomly.
One of the meals included highly processed foods; Including processed and sliced turkey, instant mashed potatoes, chocolate chip cookies, whole wheat breakfast cereal with a sweet coating, vegetable chips, a small sandwich with white bread and peanut butter and jam, and a small amount of water.
Another meal consisted of less processed foods; Including hard-boiled eggs, bananas, cranberries, cheese and some sea salt.
The important point was that despite the appearance difference of these two meals, their nutritional composition and energy were almost the same; Each serving had 300 calories.
"The amounts of carbohydrate, fat, protein, calories, water and salt in the two meals were consistent with a difference of less than 1 percent," explains Zach Hotlin, a biomedical researcher at Virginia Tech and first author of the study.
"If these servings had a nutrition label, the information would be pretty much the same," he adds.
However, the body's metabolic response to these two meals was significantly different.
The researchers took several blood samples from the participants within three hours of consuming each meal. The results showed that blood sugar changes were similar in total for both meals; With the difference that after consuming the ultra-processed meal, blood sugar remained high for a longer period of time.
The difference in insulin response was more dramatic. Insulin levels rose significantly more after eating the ultra-processed meal and remained elevated for about two hours. However, by the end of three hours, insulin levels had returned to near baseline values after both meals.
Also, during the three-hour observation period, consumption of ultra-processed meals was associated with an increase in metabolic rate and more fat burning; In contrast, the body burns less carbohydrate for energy than a less processed meal.
"We were really surprised when we saw that all the metabolic indices were different," Hotlin says.
"What we saw with ultra-processed foods was a much greater insulin response and blood sugar staying high for a little bit longer," he adds.
It is not yet clear why the body has shown different metabolic reactions to these two meals; However, researchers have obtained some clues.
In a separate experiment, participants viewed images of ultra-processed foods and non-ultra-processed foods while their brain activity was monitored using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
Among those who also participated in the food intake test, neural activity in the brain's striatum was associated with the amount of carbohydrates burned during the eating session. The striatum is a part of the brain involved in reward mechanisms.
The researchers believe that this finding shows that the way the body uses food to provide energy is related to specific symptoms related to the food we eat and possibly how much it is processed.
"Together, our results support the hypothesis that food processing may influence metabolic responses and reward processing in the brain through mechanisms beyond caloric content and macronutrient composition," the researchers write in explaining their findings.
According to them, one possible explanation is that changing the physical structure of ultra-processed foods changes the body's access to nutrients.
Another possibility is that the additives used in the industrial production of these products affect the metabolic reaction of the body when eating them. The researchers plan to investigate this possibility in future studies.
The results of this research have been published in the journal Nature Metabolism.
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