Ultra-processed diets cause excess calorie intake and weight gain: A one-month inpatient randomized controlled trial of ad libitum food intake

Ultra-processed diets cause excess calorie intake and weight gain: A one-month inpatient randomized controlled trial of ad libitum food intake

Cell Metabolism

10.1016/j.cmet.2019.05.008

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2019.05.008

Suzanne McGehee, Kevin D. Hall, Alexis Ayuketah, Robert Brychta, Hongyi Cai, Thomas Cassimatis, Kong Y. Chen, Stephanie T. Chung, Elise Costa, Amber Courville, Valerie Darcey, Laura A. Fletcher, Ciaran G. Forde, Ahmed M. Gharib, Juen Guo, Rebecca Howard, Paule V. Joseph, Ronald Ouwerkerk, Klaudia Raisinger, Irene Rozga, Michael Stagliano, Mary Walter, Peter J. Walter, Yang Shanna, Megan Zhou

processed food

16 May 2019

Hall, K. D., Ayuketah, A., Brychta, R., Cai, H., Cassimatis, T., Chen, K. Y., Chung, S. T., Costa, E., Courville, A., Darcey, V., Fletcher, L. A., Forde, C. G., Gharib, A. M., Guo, J., Howard, R., Joseph, P. V., McGehee, S., Ouwerkerk, R., Raisinger, K., Rozga, I., … Zhou, M. (2019). Ultra-Processed Diets Cause Excess Calorie Intake and Weight Gain: An Inpatient Randomized Controlled Trial of Ad Libitum Food Intake. Cell metabolism, 30(1), 67–77.e3. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2019.05.008

We investigated whether ultra-processed foods affect energy intake in 20 weight-stable adults, aged (mean ± SE) 31.2 ± 1.6 years and BMI = 27 ± 1.5 kg/m2. Subjects were admitted to the NIH Clinical Center and randomized to receive either ultra-processed or unprocessed diets for 2 weeks immediately followed by the alternate diet for 2 weeks. Meals were designed to be matched for presented calories, energy density, macronutrients, sugar, sodium, and fiber. Subjects were instructed to consume as much or as little as desired. Energy intake was greater during the ultra-processed diet (508 ± 106 kcal/day; p = 0.0001), with increased consumption of carbohydrate (280 ± 54 kcal/day; p < 0.0001) and fat (230 ± 53 kcal/day; p = 0.0004), but not protein ( 2 ± 12 kcal/day; p = 0.85). Weight changes were highly correlated with energy intake (r = 0.8, p < 0.0001), with participants gaining 0.9 ± 0.3 kg (p = 0.009) during the ultra-processed diet and losing 0.9 ± 0.3 kg (p = 0.007) during the unprocessed diet. Limiting consumption of ultra-processed foods may be an effective strategy for obesity prevention and treatment.

PublisherCopyrights

Grant title: Food Structure Engineering for Nutrition and Health Programme (FSENH) Type of grant: Industry Alignment Fund (IAF-PP) Grant Code: H18/01/a0/B11

The full paper is available for free at the publisher's URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2019.05.008

https://oar.a-star.edu.sg/communities-collections/articles/16056

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1932-7420

Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences