ReviewNutrients2021
The Role of Diet Quality in Mediating the Association between Ultra-Processed Food Intake, Obesity and Health-Related Outcomes: A Review of Prospective Cohort Studies.
Review in Nutrients, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 144 papers, 8 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
144 citing papers in PubMed, 8 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 225 citations in OpenAlex.
- Association between ultra-processed food consumption and risk of irritable bowel syndrome and functional dyspepsia: a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Pooled it
- Ultra-Processed Food Intakes and Health Outcomes in Adults Older Than 60 Years: A Systematic Review.Nutrition reviews · 2025Pooled it
- Who consumes ultra-processed food? A systematic review of sociodemographic determinants of ultra-processed food consumption from nationally representative samples.Nutrition research reviews · 2024Pooled it
- Ultra-processed food exposure and adverse health outcomes: umbrella review of epidemiological meta-analyses.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2024Pooled it
- Ultra-processed foods consumption and health-related outcomes: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials.Frontiers in nutrition · 2024Pooled it
- A Systematic Review of the Bidirectional Association Between Consumption of Ultra-processed Food and Sleep Parameters Among Adults.Current obesity reports · 2023Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Associations Between Ultra-Processed Food (UPF) Consumption and Weight Change and Obesity Risk Among Consumers of Plant-Based Diets: A Systematic Review.Journal of the American Nutrition AssociationPooled it
- Changes in Ultra-Processed Food Intake During a Single-Arm Behavioral Weight Management Intervention: A Secondary Analysis.Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.) · 2026Trial
- Almond Consumption Improves Inflammatory Profiles Independent of Weight Change: A 6-Week Randomized Controlled Trial in Adults with Obesity.Nutrients · 2026Trial
- Ultraprocessed or minimally processed diets following healthy dietary guidelines on weight and cardiometabolic health: a randomized, crossover trial.Nature medicine · 2025Trial
- Trial
- "Warning: ultra-processed": an online experiment examining the impact of ultra-processed warning labels on consumers' product perceptions and behavioral intentions.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2024Trial
- Isocaloric replacement of ultraprocessed foods was associated with greater weight loss in the POUNDS Lost trial.Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.) · 2024Trial
- Fruit and vegetable intake as a mediator in the association between ultra-processed food and disease activity in ankylosing spondylitis.Clinical rheumatology · 2026Article
- Article
- The Gut-brain-adipose Axis in Ultra-processed Food and Obesity: A Mechanistic Synthesis and Its Implications for Food Classification.Current obesity reports · 2026Review
- Article
- Review
- Article
84 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Prospective cohort studies show that higher intakes of ultra-processed food (UPF) increase the risk of obesity and obesity-related outcomes, including cardiovascular disease, cancer and type 2 diabetes. Whether ultra-processing itself is detrimental, or whether UPFs just have a lower nutritional quality, is debated. Higher UPF intakes are inversely associated with fruit, vegetables, legumes and seafood consumption. Therefore, the association between UPFs and poor health could simply be from excess nutrient intake or from a less healthful dietary pattern. If so, adjustment for dietary quality or pattern should explain or greatly reduce the size of the significant associations between UPFs and health-related outcomes. Here, we provide an overview of the literature and by using a novel approach, review the relative impact of adjusting for diet quality/patterns on the reported associations between UPF intake and health-related outcomes in prospective cohort studies. We find that the majority of the associations between UPFs, obesity and health-related outcomes remain significant and unchanged in magnitude after adjustment for diet quality or pattern. Our findings suggest that the adverse consequences of UPFs are independent of dietary quality or pattern, questioning the utility of reformulation to mitigate against the obesity pandemic and wider negative health outcomes of UPFs.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.