NIH funds study on the health effects of ultra processed foods

The National Institute of Health is conducting a study on the negative impacts of ultra processed foods, a top concern of new Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 

The study is being led by NIH senior investigator Kevin Hall and will focus on weight gain and other potentially negative health outcomes as a result of the consumption of ultra processed foods. 

The study entails housing paid participants in a government run hospital for one month and controlling what they ate.

Participants were provided with diets made up of processed foods such as chicken nuggets and pre-made meatballs and were monitored weekly to assess how their bodies used energy.  

The study will conclude later this year.  

Hall spoke about his research and the need for the food industry to address the health effects of processed food at a September 2024 conference of scientists working for food corporations in Chicago.

“I can keep doing my studies, but at the rate that these are going, it’s going to take forever to figure this out,” he said. “We don’t have forever. Chronic diet-related diseases are costing us a huge amount of money and a huge amount of suffering.” 

Kennedy has said nutrition and chronic illness will be a major priority for federal health agencies under his leadership.  

He has specifically criticized processed foods, saying they make people sick, and has called for ultra processed foods to be banned from school lunches and federal programs such as SNAP. 

Ultra Processed foods are defined by nutritionists as industrially produced foods that combine multiple ingredients derived from whole foods with additives and preservatives not used in home kitchens.  

Foods in this category make up 70% of the U.S. food supply and are associated with negative health outcomes including weight gain, diabetes, heart disease and depression. Researchers are still trying to understand how ultra processed foods may cause these outcomes.  

Hall coauthored a smaller study that used similar methods in 2019.  

The study was originally designed to disprove concerns about processed diets but found that limiting ultra processed food consumption "may be an effective strategy for obesity prevention and treatment."  

Hall began his scientific career as a physicist, but was hired by NIH in 2003 to oversee experiments for the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. 

Read the 2019 NIH study on ultra processed diets