I've just read Chris Van Tulleken’s ‘Ultra-Processed People' and am totally shocked by it!

He ate an 80% UPF diet for a month & reported poor sleep, heart burn, unhappy feelings, anxiety, sluggishness, and a low libido. He also had piles from constipation, felt “ten years older” and put on 6kg.

UPF is essentially anything with a long list of ingredients, many are industrial substances eg preservatives, emulsifiers, sweeteners, artificial colours and flavours that you would not find in your own kitchen. UPF examples include fizzy drinks; packaged snacks; sweets and chocolate; ice-cream; biscuits, cakes and pastries.

On his brain MRI scans, eating UPF had changed connections in his brain, resulting in his appetite hormones becoming deranged.

This meant that leptin, the satiety hormone, hardly responded after eating, whilst ghrelin, the hunger hormone, was high again just moments after finishing.
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The scans showed that eating UPF lit up areas of the brain that drive repetitive, automatic be-haviour, so eating UPF became something his brain simply told him to do, without him even wanting it. Very similar to what happens with addictive substances such as drugs, alcohol and cigarettes.

No wonder that you just feel compelled to keep on eating, as you never quite feel full and al-ways feel hungry.

Not surprising also that people who eat UPF tend to eat more than 500 calories per day extra than those that don’t.

Over time these changes to the brain would become more permanent. 😱

AND if that were not enough, recent studies show that eating UPF raises the risk of:

☠️ high blood pressure; heart disease, heart attacks and strokes, obesity, cancer, type 2 diabe-tes, depression
dementia & tooth decay...😲

I can't believe that these additives are not tested and the manufacturers simply declare them to be ‘GRAS’ [Generally Regarded As Safe].

Why are they even allowed to call UPF food, when ‘industrially produced edible substance’ would be more appropriate?

My conclusion: Avoid!

What do you think?