Association of Ultraprocessed Food Consumption With Risk of Dementia
A Prospective Cohort Study
Abstract
Background and Objectives
There has been a growing body of evidence associating consumption of ultraprocessed foods (UPF) with adverse health outcomes including depression, cardiovascular disease, and all-cause mortality. However, whether UPF are associated with dementia is unknown. The authors investigated the associations between UPF and dementia incidence in the UK Biobank.
Methods
We included 72,083 participants (55 years or older) who were free from dementia at baseline and provided at least 2 times 24-hour dietary assessments from the UK Biobank study. Follow-up occurred through March 2021. UPF were defined according to the NOVA classification. Incident all-cause dementia comprising Alzheimer disease (AD) and vascular dementia was ascertained through electronic linkages to hospital and mortality records. Cox proportional hazards were used to estimate the association between the proportion (%) of UPF in the diet and the subsequent risk of dementia. In addition, substitution analysis was used to estimate the risk of dementia when substituting UPF with an equivalent proportion of unprocessed or minimally processed foods.
Results
During a total of 717,333 person-years of follow-up (median 10.0 years), 518 participants developed dementia, of whom 287 developed AD and 119 developed vascular dementia. In the fully adjusted model, consumption of UPF was associated with higher risk of dementia (hazard ratio [HR] for 10% increase in UPF 1.25; 95% CI 1.14–1.37), AD (HR 1.14; 95% CI 1.00–1.30), and vascular dementia (HR 1.28; 95% CI 1.06–1.55), respectively. In addition, replacing 10% of UPF weight in diet with an equivalent proportion of unprocessed or minimally processed foods was estimated to be associated with a 19% lower risk of dementia (HR 0.81; 95% CI 0.74–0.89).
Discussion
In this prospective cohort study, higher consumption of UPF was associated with higher risk of dementia, whereas substituting unprocessed or minimally processed foods for UPF was associated with lower risk of dementia.
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© 2022 American Academy of Neurology.
Publication History
Received: December 27, 2021
Accepted: May 5, 2022
Published online: July 27, 2022
Published in issue: September 6, 2022
Disclosure
The authors report no relevant disclosures. Go to Neurology.org/N for full disclosures.
Study Funding
This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 91746205).
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