Food Preservatives May Increase the Risk of High Blood Pressure and Heart Disease

Looking at production documents On foods on store shelves, it’s common to see names like “potassium sorbate,” “citric acid,” and “L-ascorbic acid (vitamin C).” These things are nutritional supplements they are used to prevent spoilage and preserve quality, and are widely incorporated into industrially produced foods. According to Open Food Facts, the world’s largest open source food database, more than 20 percent of food and drink is left in landfills. database it has one storage.

Based on this, a research team led by scientists at Sorbonne Paris Nord University and Université Paris Cité analyzed data from the NutriNet-Santé core group. learningwhich followed 112,395 people for an average of 7.9 years, to investigate the relationship between the consumption of food preservatives and the risk of developing serious illness and heart attack.

“Experimental studies show that certain dietary supplements may be harmful to heart health, but we do not have enough evidence about how these foods affect people,” said Anaïs Hasenböhler, a doctoral researcher who led the study. Press release. “As far as we know, this is the first study of its kind to investigate the link between immunosuppressive drugs and cardiovascular health.”

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The researchers divided the defenses into two main groups. The first contained non-antioxidant preservatives, such as sorbates, nitrites, and sulfites, which inhibit the growth of mold and bacteria. The second contained antioxidants, including ascorbic acid, citric acid, and erythorbates, which prevent oxidation and degradation of nutrients. According to the researchers, almost everyone (99.5 percent) ate at least one preservative during the first two years of the study.

The study found that people who consumed the most antioxidants had a 29 percent lower risk of developing heart disease than those who consumed the most. They also had a 16 percent higher risk of cardiovascular disease, including heart attack, stroke, and angina. Participants who consumed the most antioxidants also showed a 22% higher risk of developing hypertension.

The researchers reviewed the 17 most commonly used storage devices individually. Of these, eight are associated with an increased risk of hypertension: potassium sorbate (E202), potassium metabisulfite (E224), sodium nitrite (E250), ascorbic acid (E300), sodium ascorbate (E301), sodium erythorbate (E316), citric acid (E330), and rosemary2 extract. Among these, ascorbic acid has also been linked to an increased risk of heart disease.

During the follow-up period, researchers recorded 5,544 cases of hypertension and 2,450 cases of heart disease, including 1,142 cerebrovascular events and 1,308 coronary artery disease. The study also found that about 16 percent of the association between antioxidant defenses and heart disease was directly linked through blood pressure. In other words, the findings suggest that immunosuppressant drugs can cause high blood pressure, which can increase the risk of heart disease.

Call for Review of Food Additive Regulations

The researchers emphasize that these findings are based on observational studies and do not establish a causal relationship between food preservatives and hypertension or heart disease. This study also has important limitations. Women made up 78.7 percent of the participants, and the group included a high percentage of highly educated people, meaning that it is not a good representation of the population.

However, the statistical models contained many potential confounders, and the results remained inconsistent in most analyses.

“These results show that we need to review the risks and benefits of these food additives by regulatory authorities, such as the EFSA in Europe and the FDA in the USA, in order to better protect consumers,” said Mathilde Touvier, director of research at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research, in a press release. “In the meantime, these findings support the existing recommendations to favor unprocessed and minimally processed foods, and avoid unnecessary additives.”

The possibility that preservatives considered safe can affect cardiovascular health raises important questions about current control strategies. For supplements that are consumed continuously through multiple diets without limits on their use, these findings suggest that it may be time to re-open the debate on whether existing regulations are adequate.

This article appeared first WIRED Japan and translated from Japanese.