United States: The latest expert report unveils that now a crippling bone disease is added to the list of other diseases associated with ultra-processed foods (UPFs).
More about UPFs
UPFs are various food items such as packaged snacks, sugary drinks, vegetables, bread, fruit yogurt, some breakfast cereals, and meat alternatives that have been previously associated with an assortment of health complications, including obesity and diabetes, heart diseases, depression, and dementia, among others.
One research work has gone even further to postulate that consuming these foods may increase the chances of early mortality.
And now, as new findings indicate, those early steps toward that final journey could be particularly uncomfortable because UPFs may contribute to the onset of knee osteoarthritis, the New York Post reported.
The best-known form of arthritis is osteoarthritis, which results mostly from wearing out the cartilage that lines the ends of bones, which is likened to wearing out the rubber treads on a tire.
According to Dr. Vinay K. Aggarwal, a hip and knee reconstruction specialist at NYU Langon, “Osteoarthritis is most common in the hip joints, causing pain in the groin and sides of the hips, and the knee joints, leading to pain in the front, sides or back of the knees,” the New York Post reported.
What more has the study revealed?
Researchers have indicated that each pound of body weight adds pressure on the knees and can cause four to six times the force on the knees.
In this most recent study, which was conducted and delivered today at the Radiological Society of North America or RSNA, the researchers specifically focused on the correlation between UPF intake and intramuscular thigh fat.
The team followed a group of people who had predispositions but were not yet affected by osteoarthritis.
Among 666 respondents (455/211 men and women correspondingly), the mean age was 60. The test group was also more often overweight, with a mean BMI of 27 among the participants, the New York Post reported.
The mean reported ultra-processed food consumption frequency was 40 percent of the foods consumed in the last 12 months.
To that end, contemporary studies reveal that up to 60 percent of calories consumed by Americans daily are from ultra-processed products.
The scientists discovered that the higher the intake of UPFs, the greater the amount of intramuscular fat in the thigh muscles, irrespective of the calorie intake or the level of physical activity.