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The Junk Foods That Harm Your Brain Most, Ranked by New Research
Homing in on the junk-food pyramid to rank its most harmful members, researchers from Virginia Tech have discovered that ultra-processed meats and beverages are the worst for brain health. Individuals who consumed one or more extra servings of either of these foods showed a significantly increased risk of developing cognitive impairments, including those associated with forms of dementia such as Alzheimer’s disease.
Using data from the University of Michigan Health and Retirement Study, the researchers tracked 4,750 US residents aged 55 or older to evaluate how their health had evolved over a period of up to seven years, assessing their cognitive status every two years from 2014 to 2020. Similar studies have previously explored the adverse effects of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) in general, though researchers had yet to compare discrete categories. The health costs of a diet heavy in UPFs are now known to include obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, anxiety, depression, and an increase in all-cause mortality.
Unsurprisingly, diets high in UPFs also have a detrimental impact on brain health. However, a more specific question remained: which specific junk foods were driving these associations, if any? The answer (sadly, for many) encompasses some of the most-consumed comfort foods known to culinary science: meats and beverages, meaning that a meat-lover’s pizza and a cola could combine to create a double brain-bomb.
Drinking More Than 1 Can of Any Soda Daily Linked to Liver Disease
If you think you’re doing your body a favor by choosing diet over regular soda, new research suggests your liver might disagree. A study of nearly 124,000 people found that drinking just one daily serving of artificially sweetened drinks increased the risk of a liver disease known as nonalcoholic fatty liver disease or metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD). This condition involves fat buildup in the liver, which can cause inflammation, pain, fatigue, and loss of appetite.
MASLD is now the most common chronic liver disease worldwide, affecting more than 30% of people and becoming a leading cause of liver-related deaths. The findings, presented at United European Gastroenterology Week 2025, challenge the widespread assumption that artificially sweetened beverages are a harmless alternative to their sugar-laden counterparts.
Over the study period, 1,178 participants developed liver disease, and 108 died from liver-related causes. While low- or artificially sweetened drinks were linked to a higher risk of death from liver disease, sugar-sweetened drinks were only linked to higher risks of developing liver disease and not death from the condition.
Lead author Lihe Liu acknowledged the counterintuitive nature of the findings. “SSBs [sugar-sweetened beverages] have long been under scrutiny, while their ‘diet’ alternatives are often seen as the healthier choice. Both, however, are widely consumed and their effects on liver health have not been well understood,” she said in a press statement. Our study shows that low or artificially sweetened drinks were actually linked to a higher risk of MASLD, even among people who drink low amounts—such as a single can per day, Liu said.
Health Advocates Call for a Federal ‘Reboot’ in Addressing Ultra-Processed Foods
A diverse group of food advocates, farmers, chefs and scientists is urging the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to define ultra-processed foods through a lens of public health, including what’s added or taken away from foods during processing, as well as any new risks introduced. This new way of looking at heavily processed foods, including sugary drinks, bacon, hot dogs, lunch meats, many frozen foods, and chips, candy and other snacks, could “transform the US diet from one of the least healthy to most healthy in the world,” they say. Such foods are linked to obesity, heart problems, diabetes and some cancers.
Current classification of ultra-processed foods mostly relies on looking “at the bad things in a multi-ingredient processed food … the more additives, emulsifiers, flavorants, colorings, preservatives, the more likely it is to be properly classified in the ultra-processed food category,” said Charles Benbrook, a former research professor who previously served as executive director of the National Academy of Sciences board on agriculture.
However, in a letter to the FDA last month, Benbrook and others said it is equally important to understand what healthy nutrients are lost and what new health risks have been introduced via processing, such as pesticide residues. “The capacity of a serving of food to either help somebody get healthy or stay healthy should define nutritional quality,” Benbrook said.
Study Suggests That Processed Food Consumption May Influence PFAS Exposure
Food Safety Magazine reported:
A new study from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health is shedding light on how dietary choices may influence exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Also called “forever chemicals” due to their inability to break down in the human body or the environment, PFAS are a class of synthetic chemicals used in consumer goods like cookware and food packaging, and which are increasingly acknowledged as harmful to human health.
Published in the International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health, the researchers analyzed blood samples from more than 11,000 individuals aged 12 and older, using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey for 2003–2018.
The researchers also averaged responses from two 24-hour dietary recalls to calculate relative intakes of foods classified based on the NOVA system, which groups items into four categories based on their level of processing (i.e., unprocessed/minimally processed foods, processed culinary ingredients, processed foods, and ultra-processed foods.).
