Doctors have hit back against a controversial study that linked diet soda to autism.

Research by the University of Texas (UT) found boys diagnosed with autism were three times as likely to have mothers who drank diet soda daily while pregnant or breastfeeding.

They theorized that aspartame, the popular sugar substitute found in Diet Coke, may release toxins that cause oxidative stress in cells and tissues — a process linked to autism. 

But Dr Deirdre Tobias, a nutritionist at Harvard University who was not involved in the research, told DailyMail.com it was ‘shocking that the authors would feel confident enough in this design to draw those conclusions.’

Dr Rachel Moseley, principal academic in psychology at Bournemouth University in the UK, told DailyMail.com: ‘It would be highly premature and irresponsible to suggest a relationship between aspartame and autism based on this study. As every scientist knows, correlation between two things does not mean that the one causes the other.’

Dr Tobias said the study was ‘extremely flawed’ because the data was collected retrospectively and based on the mother’s memory of how much aspartame they consumed.

Dr Moseley added that the sample size is small and was recruited from a panel of parents with an autistic child.

‘Since autism has a large genetic component, having one autistic child is already associated with a higher risk of having another autistic child,’ she said.

‘Moreover, the authors did not rigorously confirm whether either or both of the parents were themselves autistic.’

In the study, the diets of mothers of 235 children with autism spectrum disorder were compared to a control group of mothers of 121 children who didn’t have autism.

The mothers completed questionnaires that asked: ‘While you were pregnant or breastfeeding your child, how often did you drink diet drinks containing artificial sweeteners?’

Diet Coke, Diet Dr Pepper, Diet Sprite, Crystal Light, sugar-free Kool-Aid, and Slim-Fast were suggested as prompts.

Each mother was also asked: ‘While you were pregnant or breastfeeding your child, how many little packets of low-calorie sweeteners (such as Sweet ‘N Low, Equal or Splenda) did you use in your coffee, tea, or other foods and beverages?’

Intake of the three leading sweeteners — Equal/Nutrasweet (blue), Splenda (yellow), and Sweet’N Low (pink) — was recorded. 

The researchers found that males diagnosed with autism disorder were between 3.1 and 3.5 times more likely to have mothers who reported an aspartame intake equivalent to one or more diet sodas a day during pregnancy or breastfeeding, compared with male controls. 

The association was greatest among males with non-regressive autism — where the condition is apparent before 18 months, also known as early onset.

The study did not find a statistically significant trend in autistic girls.

Conditions such as obesity and diabetes in mothers are associated with an increased risk of autism in children and may also influence a decision to use diet products. 

The researchers did not collect data on these risk factors, nor smoking, drinking, birth weight, prematurity, or the age of the parents. They did have data for household income, educational attainment, and ethnicity, which they adjusted for in the results.

Dr Tobias added that the three artificial sweeteners they examined are ‘completely different compounds, metabolized very differently in humans, and have been extensively evaluated for their safety. 

‘Thus, the fact that the signal for aspartame was essentially the same as the other chemicals further points to the bias in this study, perhaps due to errors in the mothers’ recall or other factors related to women who chose diet sodas.

‘It is extremely unlikely that any association they are observing has anything to do with the chemical aspartame itself.’

The study was published in the journal Nutrients.

During pregnancy, aspartame can cross the placenta and accumulate in fetal tissue. 

The substance can also cross into breastmilk, but other studies have suggested the mother’s body rapidly breaks it down.

Autism affects one in 36 children, meaning that more than 90,000 children are born annually with the developmental disorder in the US.

It is characterized by problems with social communication and interaction, difficulty expressing oneself and repetitive behaviors and interests.

Autism is a lightning rod issue and often comes up in antivaxxer messaging. 

In a recent poll, one-quarter of American adults said they believed the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine causes autism – a widely studied and discredited claim that emerged in the 1990s.

Claims that shots can lead to autism have been peddled by anti-vaxxers for almost 25 years, but the link has been repeatedly disproven.

The disgraced British physician Andrew Wakefield made the claim in a now-retracted 1998 Lancet study.

Dr Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, publicly described the research as ‘fundamentally flawed’ in 2004 – nine years after it was published.

Dr Horton alleged that Andrew Wakefield, the gastroenterologist behind the paper, was paid by a group pursuing lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers.

The prestigious medical journal finally retracted the paper in 2010.

Just three months after his paper was pulled, Wakefield was banned from practicing medicine in Britain by the General Medical Council.

In 2011, the British Medical Journal conducted a damning probe into the findings of Wakefield’s original study.

Its investigation found only two of the 12 children included developed autistic symptoms after being vaccinated – as opposed to the eight Wakefield claimed.

Since then, studies involving millions of children have failed to find a link between the MMR vaccine and the neurodevelopmental disorder.  

NATURE

Eight bears: Mythic past and imperilled future 

by Gloria Dickie (Norton £25, 272pp)

There are eight species of bear around today. Can you name them? 

I got as far as black bear, brown bear, polar bear and panda bear, with vaguer notions of a spectacled bear — and what about grizzly bear? Is that a species?

The actual list of bears that share our planet came as a surprise. Grizzly bears aren’t a separate species, they are merely a sub species of brown bear. 

The same goes for those mighty Kodiak bears of Alaska, which can weigh up to a tonne, and stand at three metres high on their hind legs. Yikes.

The other species that might have eluded you are the sloth bear of India, a hopeless name, because it isn’t a sloth at all, it’s just a bear — and one of the most dangerous of all; the spectacled bear that lives in Ecuador and Peru; and the sun bear and moon bear, or Asiatic black bear, of South-East Asia.

In her wonderfully eye-opening and compelling account, Dickie starts by considering why the bear is so appealing to the human imagination. 

Other animals may be charismatic and beautiful, but few children go to sleep at night cuddling a toy eagle or leopard. 

Yet there are any number of fictional bears: Winnie the Pooh, Paddington Bear, Rupert Bear . . .

‘I’ve yet to encounter a tale featuring a villainous bear,’ says the author, while sinister wolves are everywhere. 

It’s hilarious to learn that in the original Goldilocks, the intruder is an ugly, foul-mouthed old woman, and the three bears are gentle souls who aren’t sure how to get rid of her.

This fondness for bears also appears in many tribal cultures, where the bear is referred to as grandfather, or a teacher of wisdom. If you’re hungry in the forest, say some, just eat what the bear eats.

There’s an intense sense of bear-human likeness. Yet the modern world is proving grim for these amazing creatures, along with so much other wildlife.

By the end of this century, there may be only four species left. What a failure this would be for them and us. If we revere them so much, they are going to need a great deal more protection and wild space to roam.

Yet where bears are tolerated more, results can be mixed. In the U.S., black bears are protected and their numbers have rocketed. Now, they are moving into the cities, foraging from wheelie bins.

One bear that wandered far too close to an elementary school in Colorado and had to be shot, was found to have enjoyed a recent diet of ‘two steaks (still in their wrappers), pasta, potatoes, eggs, avocado, paper towels, apples, lunch meat and carrots — all salvaged from nearby dumpsters’.

In the longer-term, this may produce semi-urbanised bears just as fat and malnourished as many people are today on their diet of fast food and junk.

The spectacled bear is, of course, Michael Bond’s Paddington Bear. They do love eating fruit, up in the trees in their native cloud forests, but ‘there is no record of a spectacled bear ever eating a marmalade sandwich’. 

A shy and elusive creature, the author herself fails to spot one on a field trip and they remain an appealing mystery.

Far more alarming is the Indian sloth bear, which is responsible for more human fatalities than any other species, attacking some 150 people a year. Short-sighted and ill-tempered, they will go for anyone who startles them on a forest path.

They may be so jumpy, naturalists think, because while other bears occupy the top of the food chain in their environments and can generally relax, sloth bears live alongside ferocious hunters and stalkers such as leopards and tigers.

A sloth bear’s only defence is ‘to explode in a flurry of fur, stumpy teeth and claws when threatened’. They’re not exactly blessed in the looks department either, with ‘loose protruding lips’, often dribbling at the mouth.

There’s a very funny chapter on panda bears. They eat almost solely bamboo, which isn’t very nutritious but, because no other animal really wants it, it’s easy pickings.

Pandas, ‘one of the animal kingdom’s laziest members, can’t be bothered to fight with any other species for calories’.

Sex is a bit of an effort, too, which is partly why their numbers are so perilously low.

Captive pandas have been variously encouraged with doses of Viagra, ‘panda pornography’ and even adult sex toys, but to no avail. 

They generally just prefer nibbling bamboo shoots and sleeping to the arduous business of producing more pandas.

More disturbing by far is the fate of the sun bears of Vietnam and China, which are ‘farmed’ for their bile: another of those barbaric ‘traditional medicines’.

Farmers cut into the bear’s liver and insert a needle to drain off the bile. ‘Animal welfare advocates who have witnessed this farming method say the bears “moan and quiver” throughout the process.’

Bears often succumb to infection from surgical wounds. There are some 20,000 bears in China’s bile farms, says Dickie. It’s legal there, and worth $1 billion (£790million) a year. 

Bears, like many other wild animals, may attack a human because they are startled, afraid, cornered or hungry. 

But for industrial-scale cruelty like this, it is shameful to say, you really need human beings.

Will we learn to live alongside all our bear species, protect them, and see them returning to healthy numbers? 

Or will we still demand the entire planet for ourselves alone, leading to further extinctions — and eventually our own, too?

Dickie concludes: ‘Losing bears would mean we lose a beautiful and complex relationship. We would lose a grandfather, an uncle, a mother, a medicine man, and a teacher. And in some ways, we would lose a part of our own wildness.’

I have high cholesterol and don’t want to take medication so I’m doing everything lifestyle-related to help it: losing weight, increasing exercise. I’m a healthy weight and eating very well and yet the cholesterol isn’t coming down. It can’t be genetic because no one in my immediate family has the same problem. What can I do?

High cholesterol is a very common problem that can be caused by diet or being overweight but there is also a genetic element.

Though it can run in families, if genetics are involved it doesn’t mean everyone in the family will be affected. Sometimes, it might only be one relative who has the problem.

Some people simply make more cholesterol than others – and there’s little you can do about that. Usually, we only offer treatment for high cholesterol if someone has a higher than average risk of heart disease or stroke. Doctors use something called a QRisk score to work out how likely you are to develop heart disease.

If you are a non-smoker, not overweight and do not have high blood pressure you may not be given treatment.

But it’s still important to take measures to reduce cholesterol. If you’re trying to bring it down without medication, there are specific diets you can try. Losing weight can help but adding in particular foods can be very effective. Examples include oats, soya products, nuts and cholesterol-lowering drinks called plant sterols or stanols.

These are all shown to lower cholesterol and are recommended by the charity Heart UK.

I am 55 and healthy but keep getting weird shakes in my hands. They tend to happen randomly and are not triggered by nerves. What could it be?

Shaking is an important symptom which should be discussed with your GP.

The medical term for shaking is tremor – and there are several different types.

For some people who shake, there is in fact no cause at all. We call this essential tremor, which sometimes runs in families.

Tremors happen at different times which vary between people.

For some, the shaking happens only when the hands are resting. For others, it’s triggered by trying to hold something, such as a cup. Sometimes, a particular movement or position can trigger a random tremor.

Coffee and stress can make the problem worse – and the shaking sometimes gets better with alcohol. It is worth keeping a diary to track any triggers.

A doctor will likely want to conduct some tests to check for underlying conditions that could be causing the tremor. Common ones include Parkinson’s disease, thyroid problems, excessive alcohol intake or anxiety.

Shaking is also a known side effect of some medicines including certain antidepressants and asthma medication.

A GP would take a detailed history of the tremor as well as blood tests. If no cause is found, it may be an essential tremor.

This type usually happens when resting and affects both hands, after starting in one.

If it is interfering with activities like eating and writing, you can use medication to control it.

This might be something such as a beta blocker, which can be taken as and when you want relief.

A few weeks ago I fell badly on my right side. It triggered sciatica down my right leg, which cleared up, but it’s left me with substantial pain in just my right hip. Also, my right foot is curling upwards and inwards and I have no feeling on the top of my foot.

I was sent for an MRI scan which showed that my L5 nerve is displaced – the doctor recommended surgery on it. Will my foot return to normal after the operation?

This is what’s known as ‘foot drop’, which can happen as a consequence of an injury, when there’s damage to the nerve controlling the muscles in the foot.

This is often due to relatively common problems such as a sports injury, a slipped disc or as a consequence of hip surgery. Nerve damage in the foot can also be caused by diseases such as diabetes, multiple sclerosis or even a stroke.

If the nerve is damaged the muscles malfunction and struggle to hold the foot in place or move it.

There are treatments for foot drop that do not involve surgery. Some patients will have electrical nerve stimulation, which involves having a small device implanted into the body. This device sends electrical signals to stimulate the nerves and correct the position of the foot.

One of the main problems with foot drop is the effect on walking – so some patients will opt for a splint or brace to hold the foot in position so they can get around.

The surgery for this type of foot drop could involve spinal surgery to repair the L5 nerve, which will be damaged or squashed. Releasing this nerve could allow it to function normally, fixing the problem.

There are no guarantees with this procedure – but generally speaking, a surgeon will not offer an operation without a high chance of success.

You are entitled to ask about how likely it is that the treatment will be successful before agreeing to the operation.

Please don’t trust Kim’s medical advice

I wish celebrities would stop giving useless health advice.

We’ve had fad diets and weight loss lollies, but now it seems reality TV stars are recommending private medical scans. This week, Kim Kardashian shared a selfie next to an MRI scanner to her 363 million Instagram followers. The caption described the scanner, called Prenuvo, as ‘life-saving’.

‘The scan has the ability to detect cancer and diseases such as aneurysms in its earliest stages, before symptoms arise,’ she wrote in the post, which two million people liked.

Firstly, this scanner costs around £2,000 per go. And for that, you likely won’t get any benefits. Instead, you’ll be worried about a harmless irregularity – or falsely reassured.

Tellingly, Kim isn’t even sure how an MRI scanner works. She appears to claim that it involves radiation, which it does not.

These stars are increasingly influential. When will they start thinking about the consequences of what they share?

You don’t need to freeze eggs at 20

This week I was invited to appear on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour to discuss something I see a lot in my young, female patients: fertility anxiety.

There’s been a surge in women in their 20s and early 30s coming to see me to ask for tests that will tell them if they can have children. I’ve even heard of women asking to freeze their eggs in their early 20s, just in case.

There’s no doubt that social media is to blame here. Stories of fertility problems are more accessible than ever. This can make others feel less alone but it seems to also spark anxiety in youngsters. I’ve even noticed adverts for fertility tests everywhere, which doesn’t help.

I tell my patients what I said on Woman’s Hour: The majority of women will get pregnant without help up to the age of 35. Even at 40, around 40 per cent of couples will get pregnant within a year.

Aspartame will be declared a potential cancer risk to humans, a bombshell report claimed today.

The artificial sweetener, used in a multitude of soft drinks including Diet Coke and Dr Pepper, will be listed as ‘possibly carcinogenic to humans’ in a World Health Organisation reclassification within the next few weeks, insiders said.

But what is aspartame? What other products is it found in? And how much is safe to consume?

Here, MailOnline answers all your questions. 

What is aspartame?

Aspartame is an artificial sweetener first developed in the 1960s — completely by accident — and brought into market about 20 years later.

It is approximately 200 times sweeter than sugar. 

This means less is needed gram per gram than sugar to achieve the same sweet result, meaning products that contain it tend to be less calorific.

Unlike sugar, it does not raise blood sugar levels, making it a handy alternative for diabetics.

Chemically, aspartame is made up of three substances — aspartic acid (40 per cent), phenylalanine (50 per cent) and methanol (10 per cent).

What is it found in?

Aspartame is added to hundreds of products which market themselves as being ‘diet’ or ‘sugar-free’. 

The most famous examples are Diet Coke and Dr Pepper, as well as sugar-free gums such as Extra’s.

Other examples include low-fat or diet yogurts and jellies.

Is there aspartame in Coke Zero and Pepsi Max too?

Both products list aspartame in their ingredients list.

Other soft drink brands like Fanta Zero Orange, Lucozade and Sprite as well as some brands of squash and juice, such as Robinsons and Ribena Light, contain the artificial sweetener.

This means that it’s not just stereotypically ‘diet’ or ‘light’ soda drinks that contain the sweetener and many people could be consuming them without realising. 

What are its dangers?

Aspartame consumption has been anecdotally linked to headaches, dizziness and stomach upsets. 

However blind trials, where participants didn’t know if the product they consume has the sweetener, have failed to replicate this.

But there have been broader health concerns for years, including that it causes cancer, alters the gut biome, triggers depression, and paradoxically even contribute to obesity by increasing people’s appetites.

Yet health and food regulators have repeatedly declared them safe to use following ‘rigorous’ safety assessments.

There is one exception, however. People with phenylketonuria, a rare inherited blood condition, cannot process phenylalanine — one of the building blocks of aspartame.

If people with phenylketonuria consume phenylalanine it can build up in their blood, eventually damaging their vital organs. 

For this exact reason, aspartame must be listed as an ingredient on any product that contains it in both the US and UK, as well as other countries. 

Only about one in 10,000 people have the condition.  

What does the potential ruling mean?

The bombshell decision means the WHO’s subsidiary body, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), will officially link aspartame consumption to cancer.

However, it is expected to get a ruling of 2B, according to Reuters. 

This means it is ‘possibly carcinogenic to humans’. 

It is the middle of five categories, and means ‘there is some evidence that it can cause cancer in humans’. At the same time, the link is ‘far from conclusive’.

The IARC’s same 2B cancer risk status is also given to aloe vera extract, lead, and several colouring agents. 

For comparison, red meat is considered ‘probably carcinogenic to humans,’ or 2A — one stage above aspartame’s expected bracket. 

The IARC has previously said the radiofrequency electromagnetic fields emitted by mobile phones as a 2B cancer risk and acrylamide, the brown-black substance that forms on food from frying or baking, as a 2A cancer risk. 

IARC rankings are based on the evidence base that a substance or hazard poses a carcinogenic risk to people and not the individual risk.

For example, both smoking tobacco and eating processed meat is classified as 1, meaning the evidence basis linking the substance to an increased risk of cancer is very strong.

However, it does not mean bacon is as carcinogenic as smoking. 

Will Diet Coke be slapped with cancer warnings then?

Such rules are left up to individual countries.

But no similar warnings have been placed on red or processed meats in the UK despite stronger links to cancer being found according to past IARC rulings.

Any attempt to include such a warning would likely be considered an overreaction and would face stiff opposition from the soft drinks and sweetener industries.

Those opposed to the creep of ‘nanny-statism’ would also campaign against it.

But it could, if the evidence base is strong enough, lead to a recommended intake for aspartame by health authorities, for example the NHS.

This, depending on what experts find, could lead to Brits being advised to only consume one product containing aspartame per day or week, for example.

Such warnings could be published in health information similar to the NHS’s Eat Well guide. 

How much aspartame is safe to consume?

Even if aspartame is declared ‘possibly carcinogenic’ to humans, an individual’s risk could vary immensely.

The IARC establishes its rating based on evidence linking a substance to cancer, not the actual risk itself. 

Safe consumption levels would be determined by a separate body, the Joint WHO and Food and Agriculture Organisation’s Expert Committee on Food Additives.

It would provide advice on individual consumption levels, which could then be adapted by national health bodies.

The current recommendations for safe daily aspartame consumption are 50mg per kg of body weight in the US and 40mg per kg of body weight in the UK. 

This puts the British recommendation at about 2800mg for a 70kg adult.

Considering the average can of Diet Coke contains 180mg of real aspartame the British Dietetic Association says an adult would need to consume 15 cans a day to reach the acceptable daily intake of the sweetener. 

Will manufacturers face backlash?

Any IARC ruling on aspartame’s cancer risk could prompt consumer backlash, with customers shunning products containing them over cancer fears.

Similar boycotts have occurred from other IARC rulings.

In 2015, its committee concluded that glyphosate, a herbicide, is ‘probably carcinogenic’.

The ruling is often cited as a reason the product was banned in various countries, and many more individual states, cities or local government have also enacted rules against its use. 

Such consumer backlash on aspartame could, in theory, lead to food and drink companies changing the formulation of their products.

You’ve got more chance of losing weight in January than the summer: Diets are most successful at the start of the year, study finds

• Those who diet at the start of the year see the most weight fall off, a study shows
• Experts believe it is down to a ‘fresh start’ mentality and higher motivation

By Emily Craig Senior Health Reporter For Mailonline

Updated: 03:54 EDT, 28 June 2023

Scientists claim that simple tweaks to diet, exercise and sleep could wind back a person’s biological age in as little as eight weeks.

Researchers at the University of Virginia tasked six healthy women who were around 58 years old to follow a diet including plenty of leafy greens, seeds and three servings of liver a week for two months.

Participants, who were anonymous, were also asked to exercise for 30 minutes five days a week, sleep at least seven hours a night and do two ten-minute breathing exercises a day.

Results showed that the women’s biological age — the estimated age of their cells —  dropped by nearly five years on average, from 56 to 51 years. One participant’s biological age fell 11 years during the study, from 57 to 46 years.

Biohacking has surged in popularity in recent years, with followers trying to reduce their biological age — or how old their cells and tissues are — in order to live longer and avoid illnesses such as heart disease.

The diet was designed to support DNA methylation, which helps to keep cells healthy within the body.

As someone ages, however, DNA methylation generally becomes altered and less efficient, leading to a faster aging of cells.

Scientists tracked how well participants followed the program, revealed this year in the journal Aging, via daily reports on an app.

Overall, the participants stuck to the plan 82 percent of the time but were more likely to stick to diet (84 percent) than lifestyle (77 percent) targets.

The research team, led by aging expert Dr Kara Fitzgerald, said in the paper: ‘The findings of this case series add to the existing evidence suggesting that widely-accessible, cost-effective dietary and lifestyle interventions, that are designed to support DNA methylation and are widely considered to be safe, may be able to reduce measures of biological aging.

‘This case series of women participants extends the previous pilot study of this intervention in men, indicating that favorable biological age changes may be achievable in both sexes.’

For the diet, participants ate plenty of vegetables: Two cups of dark leafy greens like kale, spinach and mustard greens, two cups of cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and three cups of colorful vegetables like an eggplant every day.

They were also given a daily portion of pumpkin and sunflower seeds, as well as half a cup of berries or half a teaspoon of rosemary or turmeric.

Each was asked to eat six pounds of meat per day, as well as take probiotics and green powder supplements every 24 hours.

Per week, participants were also told to consume three ounces of liver and five to ten eggs.

For fluids, they were told to drink up to eight cups of water per day. 

But they were also given instructions on what foods to avoid, namely any with added sugar or candy, dairy, grains and legumes or beans. 

The diet was meant to be eaten over a 12-hour window every day, which the scientists said should be from 7am to 7pm.

Participants also had lifestyle tweaks to follow, which included 30-minute moderate to high-intensity exercise sessions five days a week, like running or cycling, sleeping at least seven hours a night and doing two ten-minute breathing exercises twice a day to combat stress.

At the beginning of the study, participants went for blood tests to check their biological age.

This was estimated using the Horvath DNAmAge clock, which uses DNA methylation to estimate someone’s biological age. It is based on a sample of more than 8,000 adults.

Participants had weekly sessions with trained nutritionists to ensure adherence, who were also available via an app to answer questions throughout the day.

They said their results built on the previous study in men, which found that their biological age was reversed by three years on average after following the same diet for each week.

The study had several limitations, however, including that it was not clear which factor was driving the reduction in biological age.

Some scientists suggest this was likely diet, but previous research has suggested that when someone is already eating a good diet this has a limited effect.

Others suggest that tweaks to sleeping patterns and exercise regimes can be much stronger catalysts for boosting health.

Other limitations include its small sample size, meaning it was unclear whether another factor could have caused the reduction.

Are baked beans healthy? It was the question that set Twitter alight last week. According to food policy expert and author Rob Percival, the much-loved British staple brainwashes children into developing a taste for sweet foods from a young age, making them grow up into junk food fiends. And he didn’t stop there.

In a detailed Twitter thread – which attracted 150,000 views – he suggested the same was true for baby foods and children’s snacks.

Nutrition expert Professor Tim Spector soon got involved, highlighting the risks of a host of supermarket favourites – bread, cakes and even flour.

Why are these foods supposedly so bad for our bodies?

Because they are ultra-processed, the experts say.

It means they are made in a factory with lots of ingredients listed on the back of the packet, often containing chemicals to extend shelf life.

Ultra-processed food (UPF) has, over the past few years, become the big bad wolf of the diet world, linked to everything from cancer to bipolar disorder.

This was highlighted last month in The Mail on Sunday’s serialisation of Dr Chris van Tulleken’s new book on UPFs.

I’ve slowly been growing tired of this trend. But this latest Twitter debacle made me really mad.

The warnings sparked a flurry of questions from puzzled, anxious Twitter user. What about expensive tinned beans? Are they any better, or should you rinse off the sauce? Are cakes OK if you make them at home without adding chemicals? And what about tinned potatoes?

It was a perfect illustration of why telling us to steer clear of processed food can risk creating more confusion.

The truth is that just because a food comes in a packet it doesn’t mean it is bad for you. In fact, many of the products that fresh food evangelists turn their nose up at – jars of pasta sauce, packaged bread and some ready-meals – are, dare I say it, healthy.

This was the conclusion of the British Nutrition Foundation last week, according to a statement, which Rob Percival was responding to in his tweets. The charity was attacked for its claims that frozen fish fingers and baked beans are healthy, with critics accusing it of bias due to the funding it receives from big food brands.

Hitting back, Bridget Benelam, spokesman for the British Nutrition Foundation, says: ‘Food manufacturers pay us to advise them on nutritional policies to make their food healthier. We think this is important work and we’re always transparent about it.’

So let’s look at the research on these vilified UPFs.

The most commonly used definition of the term comes from a seminal paper published in 2016 by a group of Brazilian scientists. Their research was based on studies that tracked the diets and health outcomes of hundreds of thousands of people living in the US and Western Europe, including the UK.

People who ate a lot of food that had gone through several industrial processes were found to have a higher risk of obesity. The scientists categorised foods into four groups according to the level of processing, which they called the Nova classification.

Fresh meat and fish and dried nuts are in the unprocessed, healthy group. Condiments, such as vinegar and salted butter, are in the ‘minimally processed’ group two. Group three – tinned fruit, smoked meat and unpackaged, fresh supermarket bread – should be limited. Group four is ultra-processed – the worst type, containing five or more ingredients, and should be avoided. This consists of mass-produced packaged bread, pasta sauces, cereal and fruit yogurts.

But healthy eating just doesn’t work like that.

‘The Nova system doesn’t take into account the nutrients in food,’ says Steve Blackburn, an NHS dietician working in a London hospital. ‘There are plenty of foods that are perfectly nutritious, as well as easy to prepare, but have been “processed”. Cereal, for example.

‘Low-sugar, wholegrain cereals such as Weetabix are a great source of fibre, which protects against bowel cancer. We don’t get enough of it. Most are fortified with extra vitamins and minerals, and if you add milk you get a bit of protein and calcium which is great for bone health and energy.’

Professor Tom Sanders, Emeritus Professor of nutrition and dietetics at King’s College London, adds: ‘Breakfast cereals provide 30 to 40 per cent of the nutrients that children need.’

There are plenty of other examples. Take ultra-processed pasta sauce. One serving of a jar of Waitrose’s Essential Bolognese Sauce contains a meagre 29 calories, a teaspoon of sugar and barely a trace of salt and fat. The sugar content comes from the tomatoes and tomato puree – so no different from what you might make at home. The only unusual ingredient is lactic acid, which helps the sauce stay fresher for longer.

What about packaged, supermarket bread?

Sainsbury’s Multiseed Farmhouse Wholemeal Bread has nearly half the calories and a gram less sugar than a luxury, freshly baked multiseed loaf by artisan bakery chain Gail’s. There is also more fibre in the packaged version.

Ready-meals these days aren’t that bad either, thanks to Government incentives to reduce sugar, salt and fat.

The ingredients in Sainsbury’s Tomato and Mozzarella Pasta Bake are little different from what you might use at home. It also contains 185 fewer calories, about a teaspoon less salt and two-thirds less fat than a plate of fresh tomato and mozzarella pasta from the Italian restaurant chain Vapiano.

‘If you buy a cheap Victoria sponge cake, it’s probably less fattening than one you’ll make at home,’ says Prof Sanders.

But what about all the nasty chemicals, you might ask. Don’t they hijack our appetites and ruin our insides?

As demonstrated above, not all processed food contains a never-ending list of alien ingredients. And not all additives deserve a bad reputation.

‘Most are there to stop us getting food poisoning,’ says Prof Sanders. ‘Extra vitamins and minerals count as additives. And this is part of the reason why we’ve virtually eradicated nutrient deficiencies in many parts of the world.’

There is research that shows some additives – particularly emulsifiers and artificial sweeteners – can destroy the healthy bacteria in our gut, which are said to be key to keeping a healthy weight, among other benefits. But many of the studies are conducted on rodents, and it is not yet proven that it is definitely the ultra-processed food that changes gut bacteria, rather than something else.

And as for claims that sweet foods are priming young brains to seek out junk food in later life, the experts disagree. ‘Children’s brains are naturally programmed to seek out fatty, sweet food that’s high in energy – it’s a survival tactic,’ explains Prof Sanders.

The anti-processed food brigade often point to brain-imaging studies to prove that this stuff is ‘addictive’. Experiments found that when participants look at pictures of junk food, the reward centres in their brain ‘light up’.

‘We’ve learned, over time, that it tastes nice,’ says Prof Sanders. ‘That’s not the same as an addiction. That’s like saying we’re addicted to anything we take pleasure in.’

Mr Blackburn adds: ‘The patients I treat are unhealthily thin and don’t have much of an appetite. They mostly eat ready-meals that are high in sugar and calories, because they’re easy to eat if you have mouth sores and help with weight gain. If they were addictive, patients wouldn’t stop eating it – but we have the opposite problem.’

Britons do consume too much junk food, such as cakes, biscuits, crisps and fast food. About a fifth of people say they eat it at least once or twice a week. But it’s not unhealthy because it’s been made in a factory. It just so happens that a lot of these products are high in fat, sugar, salt and, importantly, calories. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that people who eat lots of calories are more likely to develop obesity and its related health conditions.

‘It’s easier to eat a lot because these foods taste nice – especially if they are snacks such as crisps and chocolate and eaten mindlessly in front of the television,’ says Prof Sanders.

Studies also show that people who eat lots of this type of food are more likely to do other unhealthy things, such as avoid exercise, smoke, drink and work varied shifts.

So how do we know if the way the food is made is behind the health problems, or it’s something else?

It’s also worth saying that most ultra-processed food is eaten by people on low incomes.

And what’s the point in making them feel guilty or embarrassed for selecting food they can afford? It’s not just about money – not everyone has spare time to throw together a homemade pasta sauce after a long day at work. So what should we eat?

‘No food should be avoided unless you have an allergy,’ says Mr Blackburn. ‘Don’t eat foods that are high in fat, sugar, salt and calories often, and eat plenty of fruit and veg.’

Now, where have I heard that advice before?