New report highlights differences between healthy and unhealthy ultra-processed foods

 A new report underscores the significant variations in healthfulness of different types of processed foods. The report, released by Healthy Eating Research (HER), recommends that “healthy” ultra-processed foods be exempt from policies meant to discourage consumers from eating them. 

“Many people have been told to avoid processed foods, but the science is clearly telling us that we need to be more nuanced,” said Noah Praamsma, registered dietitian with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a national health advocacy nonprofit. “Processed meat like bacon, hot dogs, and deli meat should absolutely be avoided, but many plant-based foods that are considered ultra-processed, like breads, cereals, and meat alternatives are actually good for your health.” 

Plant-based foods, Praamsma said, even when ultra-processed, like breakfast cereal, tend to have beneficial effects on human health. Animal-based ultra-processed foods and sugary drinks are consistently found to be harmful.

The HER report’s release coincides with the federal government’s efforts to define ultra-processed foods (UPFs). The Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture began seeking input regarding a definition for UPFs last year. This definition, still pending, will be used to inform policy, including taxation, advertising limits, and what foods can be served as part of the National School Lunch Program and other government-run food service facilities.  

“We need polices informed by science, not ideology, and that are robust enough to actually promote beneficial food and discourage unhealthy foods,” Praamsma said.

Research has shown that not all foods classified as ultra-processed are harmful to health. A recent analysis from Harvard researchers found that sugary and artificially sweetened drinks and processed meats increased the risk of heart disease, but that bread, cold cereals, even some savory snacks, had beneficial effects.

The bread and cereal UPF categories, as well as plant-based meat alternatives, have also been found to reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes, compared to processed meat and sugary drinks, which increased risk of diabetes and heart disease.

The 14-member committee that authored the HER report recognized certain criteria should be used to exclude UPFs that are known to be healthy. Foods fall into this category if they contain adequate amounts of recommended food groups; remain below nutrient thresholds for added sugar, sodium, and saturated fat; and do not contain non-sugar sweeteners. 

The HER report aligns with growing scientific consensus that not all UPF subgroups may have drastically different effects. In August of 2025, the American Heart Association acknowledged that “not all UPFs are junk foods or have poor nutritional quality; some UPFs have better nutritional value and can be part of an overall healthy dietary pattern.” 

Grape consumption = improved skin health

Clinical trials have shown that consumption of grapes can increase the resilience of skin to UV irradiation in about 30-50% of the subject population. New studies published in the current issue of the journal ACS Nutrition Science suggest the effect of consuming grapes on human skin health is much broader – most likely affecting everyone. 

The investigation was performed with human volunteers who consumed the equivalent of three servings of whole grapes each day for two weeks. Gene expression in skin was determined before and after grape consumption, with and without exposure of skin to low doses of UV irradiation. 

The results demonstrated inter- and intraindividual differences of gene expression in the skin. In other words, from the outset, gene expression in the skin of each individual was different. The expression changed when the subjects consumed grapes or when exposed to UV irradiation, but still each individual was different from one another. Further unique changes were observed when UV irradiation was combined with grape consumption. 

Consequently, while gene expression is different when comparing one person to another person, the gene expression of every person changed after consuming grapes. 

When searching for a functional commonality resulting from these changes in gene expression after consuming grapes, the investigators were able to construe the myriads of data as being indicative of enhanced skin keratinization and cornification, which are known to create a  barrier against environmental damage. This idea was reinforced by exposing skin to a low dose of UV irradiation and measuring the generation of malondialdehyde, a marker of oxidative stress, which was reduced when the subjects consumed grapes. 

 “We are now certain that grapes act as a superfood and mediate a nutrigenomic response in humans,” said John Pezzuto, Ph.D., Professor and Dean of the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences at Western New England University. “We observed this with the largest organ of the body, the skin. The changes in gene expression indicated improvements in skin health. But beyond skin, it is nearly certain that grape consumption affects gene expression in other somatic tissues of the body, such as liver, muscle, kidney and even brain. This helps us to understand how consumption of a whole food, in this case grapes, affects our overall health. It’s very exciting to be working in the post-genomics era where we can finally start to employ functional genomics and actually visualize complex matrices indicative of nutrigenomic responses.” 

Improved life satisfaction linked to being in nature

 

A major international study has found that contact with the natural world is linked to higher levels of life satisfaction – and we have our bodies to thank for unlocking this benefit.

Published in the journal Environment International, the research analysed responses from 50,363 people aged 18 to 99, from across 58 nations, making it the largest multinational study of its kind ever carried out.

It is known that spending time in a nature can improve our mental wellbeing, but the mechanisms underpinning these benefits have not been fully understood.

This new study, led by Viren Swami, Professor of Social Psychology at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), has discovered that contact with nature helps people develop more positive body image, and it is this increased “body appreciation” that is responsible for greater life satisfaction. Crucially, these findings apply to all ages and gender identities.

The link between spending time in nature and positive body image itself is underpinned by two pathways. First, the research demonstrates that nature contact is associated with higher self-compassion, which in turn promotes greater body appreciation and life satisfaction.

Nature provides opportunities for what psychologists describe as “cognitive quiet”, which is a state of awareness where our attention is effortlessly engaged. The gentle sights and sounds of natural environments allow deliberation without mental strain, which helps people to display kindness towards themselves.

A second pathway identified in the study focuses on how spending time in nature helps people feel restored. Busy urban environments often require constant focus to manage competing demands such as traffic, noise and crowds, which can lead to mental fatigue.

In contrast, tranquil natural environments encourage mindful thinking and help the brain recover. The study found that feeling restored after spending time in nature is also associated with greater body appreciation, which in turn results in greater life satisfaction.

Lead author Professor Viren Swami of Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, England, said: “We know that spending time in nature is good for our mental and physical health, but this study highlights one important way in which those benefits translate into greater life satisfaction.

“In particular, our findings highlight how being in nature is linked to greater self‑compassion and a stronger sense of restoration. Both of these are associated with more positive body image and, ultimately, improved life satisfaction.

“What is striking is how consistent these patterns are across countries, ages and gender identities, suggesting that connecting with nature helps people build positive relationships with their bodies in ways that are deeply rooted in human psychology.

“At a time when many countries are searching for affordable ways to improve wellbeing, our findings highlight the value of natural environments as important public health resources and reinforce the importance of using scientific evidence to shape planning, education and health policies.”

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Journal

Environment International

DOI

10.1016/j.envint.2026.110277 

Too little sleep—and too much—associated with faster aging

An analysis of biological clocks throughout the human body suggests that too few hours of sleep—and too many—may speed aging in the brain, heart, lung, and immune system and is associated with a wide range of diseases. 

“Previous studies have found that sleep is largely linked to aging and the pathological burden of the brain. Our study goes further and shows that too little and too much sleep are associated with faster aging in nearly every organ, supporting the idea that sleep is important in maintaining organ health within a coordinated brain-body network, including metabolic balance and a healthy immune system,” says study leader Junhao Wen, assistant professor of radiology at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. 

The research was published May 13 in Nature. 

The power of aging clocks 

Aging clocks are increasingly popular for digitizing how many years a person ages faster or slower than their chronological age using machine learning, based on the biological data (e.g., proteins from a minimally invasive blood test) from the person.  

Though most aging clocks measure aging across the whole body, organs age at different rates—a fact well-known to women facing ticking biological clocks due to fast-aging ovaries.  

Wen’s group has been at the forefront of constructing aging clocks for specific organs in the body that could provide more specific and personalized information to patients.  

“Everyone is excited by these aging clocks and their ability to predict disease and mortality risk,” Wen says. “But to me, the more exciting question is, can we link aging clocks to a lifestyle factor that can be modified in time to slow aging?” 

The U-shaped pattern between aging clocks and sleep 

Sleep was the perfect test case, as sleep is increasingly thought to be an important factor in health. “I’m also a light sleeper and was getting worried about the effects on myself,” says Wen.  

To build his aging clocks, Wen used data collected from half a million participants in the UK Biobank and used machine learning to determine signatures for an aging organ. Wen used a wide variety of data sources to create aging clocks based on structural data from medical images, organ-specific proteins, and molecules found in blood in each organ. “In the liver, for example, we have an aging clock built with protein data, an aging clock of metabolic data, and an aging clock of imaging data,” Wen says. “This allows us to see whether sleep is distinctively associated with aging clocks derived from multiple omics and molecular layers.” 

He then assessed the relationship between a person’s sleep duration (as reported by each Biobank participant) and their biological ages from 23 aging clocks across 17 organ systems.  

Across the entire body, a coordinated U-shaped pattern emerged: In the UK Biobank population, both short sleep (fewer than 6 hours) and long sleep (greater than 8 hours) were associated with faster aging, while the least amount of aging occurred in people who reported between 6.4 and 7.8 hours of sleep per day. This does not mean that sleep duration alone causes organs to age faster or slower, but it suggests that both insufficient and excessive sleep may be markers of poorer overall health across the body. 

Sleep’s body-wide connection to disease 

The relationship between sleep and disease suggests that there exists a connection between the brain and the body that extends beyond merely influencing the brain itself.  

Among brain-related disorders, short sleep was significantly associated with depressive episodes and anxiety disorders, as seen in other studies of sleep and mental health. Short sleep was also associated with obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, ischemic heart disease, and heart arrhythmias. Short and long sleep were associated with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, and a cluster of digestive disorders, including gastritis and gastroesophageal reflux disease. 

Wen says, “The broad brain-body pattern is important because it tells us that sleep duration is a deeply embedded part of our entire physiology, with far-reaching implications across the body.” 

A deeper look at late-life depression and sleep 

Beyond predicting disease, the organ-specific aging clocks are also valuable for determining how sleep is related to specific conditions, as exemplified by Wen’s examination of late-life depression.  

Although the study could not definitively determine if sleep duration caused late-life depression or if late-life depression impacted sleep duration, Wen’s group applied “mediation analysis” to late-life depression, asking whether aging clocks mediate the relationship between both short and long sleep and late-life depression. The analyses suggest that short sleep may act directly on the disease burden of late-life depression, while long sleep may impact late-life depression via a mediation pathway underlying the brain and adipose clocks. 

“This has a strong implication for future sleep management and future therapeutics,” Wen says. “Our study suggests there may be different biological pathways between long and short sleepers that lead to the same outcome, late-life depression, and we shouldn’t treat them the same way.” 

Dietary changes in older people can improve ‘biological age’

Older Australians who reduce either dietary fat or animal-based protein show signs of reduced biological age, new research from the University of Sydney shows. 

Published in Aging Cell, the findings revealed 65- to 75-year-olds subjected to dietary intervention for just four weeks showed a reduction in 'biological age' based on their biomarker profile. Led by Dr Caitlin Andrews from the University of Sydney’s School of Life and Environmental Sciences, the research highlights the potential for dietary interventions to rapidly improve health and aging outcomes in older age. It offers a preliminary indication rather than a conclusive result, with the authors calling for longer-term trials to test whether these improvements translate into reduced disease risk and whether the findings extend to other age groups.  

While chronological age increases uniformly, biological aging varies between individuals, reflecting differences in health status and the body’s resilience. Scientists can estimate biological age using biomarker profiles, measures of physiological function over time which are often considered a better indicator of overall health and potential longevity than chronological age. 

The research integrated data from 20 different biomarkers - including blood levels of cholesterol, insulin and C-reactive protein - to calculate a biological age score for participants in the Nutrition for Healthy Living study, undertaken at the University’s Charles Perkins Centre.  

In the Nutrition for Healthy Living study, 104 participants were randomly assigned to one of four diets, each deriving 14 percent of energy from protein. Two were omnivorous (half coming from animal sources and the rest from plants) and two were semi-vegetarian (with 70 percent of protein coming from plant sources). Within the omnivorous and semi-vegetarian categories participants were then assigned to diets either high in fat and low in carbohydrates or low in fat and high in carbohydrates, resulting in four categories of diet: omnivorous high-fat (OHF), omnivorous high-carbohydrate (OHC), semi-vegetarian high-fat (VHF), or semi-vegetarian high-carbohydrate (VHC).  

Participants’ BMI (body mass index) ranged from 20-35. All participants were non-smokers, non-vegetarians and had no serious complications (e.g., type-2 diabetes mellitus, cancers, renal or liver disease) or food allergies and/or intolerances.   

The OHF group, whose amended diets most closely resembled participants’ baseline diets, showed no meaningful change in the 'biological age' of their biomarker profile. However, the biological age of the biomarker profile for those in the remaining three groups showed reductions. The reduction in biological age among the OHC group – those who ate omnivorous diets high in carbohydrates – was estimated with the highest degree of statistical confidence. This group’s diet comprised 14 percent of energy from protein, 28-29 percent from fat, and 53 percent from carbohydrates.  

It is unclear whether the impact of dietary changes on age-related biomarker profiles is enduring and results in sustained biological age reversal.  

“Longer term dietary changes are needed to assess whether dietary changes alter the risk of age-related diseases,” said Associate Professor Alistair Senior, from the School of Life and Environmental Sciences and the Charles Perkins Centre, who supervised the research.  

“It’s too soon to say definitively that specific changes to diet will extend your life. But this research offers an early indication of the potential benefits of dietary changes later in life,” said Dr Andrews. 

 “Future research should explore whether these findings extend to other cohorts and whether the changes recorded are sustained or predictive of long-term outcomes.”

Cannabis compounds may boost metabolic health while supporting weight loss

 A University of California, Riverside preclinical study is shedding light on a long-observed but poorly understood phenomenon: chronic cannabis users tend to have lower body weight and a reduced risk of developing type 2 diabetes, despite the drug’s well-known tendency to increase appetite.

A team led by Nicholas V. DiPatrizio, a professor of biomedical sciences at the UCR School of Medicine, set out to investigate this apparent paradox. While cannabis is commonly associated with increased food intake — often referred to as the “munchies” — population studies consistently show that regular users exhibit improved metabolic profiles compared to non-users. 

The new findings, published in The Journal of Physiology, suggest that specific compounds within cannabis may play a key role in regulating metabolism.

Using a mouse model designed to mimic human dietary patterns, DiPatrizio and his team compared the effects of pure delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) — the primary psychoactive component of cannabis — with a whole-plant cannabis extract containing the same level of THC alongside other naturally occurring compounds.

Both treatments led to significant weight loss in obese mice. However, the metabolic outcomes differed dramatically.

Mice treated with THC alone showed no improvement in glucose regulation, a key indicator of type 2 diabetes. Despite losing weight, these animals continued to exhibit impaired glucose homeostasis, a hallmark of diabetes.

In contrast, mice treated with the whole cannabis extract not only lost weight but also experienced a reversal of these metabolic impairments.

“This suggests that THC alone is not responsible for the metabolic benefits associated with cannabis use,” said DiPatrizio, who directs the UCR Center for Cannabinoid Research. “Other compounds in the plant appear to play a critical role.”

The researchers’ analysis points to a potential mechanism involving communication between fat tissue and the pancreas. In healthy systems, fat cells release signaling molecules that help regulate insulin secretion from the pancreas. In obesity and type 2 diabetes, this signaling becomes disrupted.

The study found that treatment with the full cannabis extract restored this communication pathway better than THC alone, allowing fat tissue to signal the pancreas and regulate blood glucose levels more effectively.

While the findings are promising, the researchers emphasize they do not necessarily support the use of cannabis as a treatment for metabolic disease given that further research is needed in preclinical and human studies.

“We’re not suggesting people should use cannabis to manage weight or diabetes,” DiPatrizio said.

DiPatrizio aims to identify non-psychoactive cannabis compounds for targeted therapies that deliver metabolic benefits without THC’s intoxicating effects. Future studies will isolate and test individual compounds to pinpoint those responsible.

The research also underscores the importance of continued scientific investigation as cannabis use becomes more widespread and policies evolve.

“Clinicians, researchers, and policymakers should stay tuned and pay attention to this space,” DiPatrizio said. “We need evidence-based approaches to fully understand both the risks and potential benefits of cannabis and its components.”

Engaging with arts linked to slower pace of ageing

 

Regularly taking part in arts activities such as reading, listening to music or visiting a gallery or museum may slow the pace of biological ageing, suggests a new study by University College London (UCL) researchers.

The study, published in the journal Innovation in Aging, looked at survey response and blood test data from 3,556 adults in the UK. Researchers compared participants’ arts and cultural engagement with chemical changes to DNA that influence biological ageing without altering the genetic code.

The research team found that those who engaged in arts and cultural activities more frequently, and who engaged in a wider diversity of these activities, appeared to have a slower pace of ageing and a younger biological age, as suggested by changes to DNA.

The apparent effects were comparable to those seen for exercise. For instance, people who did an arts activity at least once a week seemed to age 4% more slowly than those who rarely engaged with arts. This was the same as those who exercised at least once a week compared to those who did no exercise.

The links were stronger for middle-aged and older adults aged 40 or above and remained after accounting for factors that might skew the results such as BMI, smoking status, education level and income.

Lead author Professor Daisy Fancourt (UCL Institute of Epidemiology & Health Care) said: “These results demonstrate the health impact of the arts at a biological level. They provide evidence for arts and cultural engagement to be recognised as a health-promoting behaviour in a similar way to exercise.

“Our study also suggests that engaging in a variety of arts activities may be helpful. This may be because each activity has different ‘ingredients’ that help health, such as physical, cognitive, emotional or social stimulation.”

Senior author Dr Feifei Bu (UCL Institute of Epidemiology & Health Care) said: “Our study provides the first evidence that arts and cultural engagement is linked to a slower pace of biological ageing. This builds on a growing body of evidence about the health impact of the arts, with arts activities being shown to reduce stress, lower inflammation and improve cardiovascular disease risk, just as exercise is known to do.”

The researchers used data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study, a nationally representative sample whose participants’ blood samples were analysed to estimate biological age and pace of ageing.

This was done using seven epigenetic clocks – tests that look at age-related DNA changes (DNA methylation). Each of the seven clocks measured methylation (where a methyl molecule attaches to a nucleotide) at different sites on the genome.

The two newest clocks, DunedinPoAm and DunedinPACE, estimate the pace of ageing, with a faster ageing score associated with a higher risk of age-related diseases. Both frequency and diversity of arts engagement and physical activity were found to be linked to slower ageing.

For the DunedinPACE clock, doing an arts activity at least three times a year was linked to ageing 2% more slowly, monthly engagement was linked to 3% slower ageing, and weekly activity to a 4% slower ageing rate, compared to those who engaged with arts less than three times a year.

This difference in pace of ageing is comparable to that found in previous studies between current smokers and ex-smokers.

In another test, PhenoAge, which estimates biological age, people who engaged in arts and cultural activities at least weekly were a year younger on average compared to those who rarely engaged. People who did exercise at least weekly were just over half a year younger on average.

The other, older epigenetic clocks analysed in the study did not show any benefit for either arts and cultural engagement or physical activity. The team noted this was in line with previous studies finding no link between epigenetic age, as measured by these clocks, and physical performance such as walking speed. The researchers said this may be because these clocks were less sensitive to predicting age-related decline.