Table 1.
Observational studies assessing the relationship between UPF consumption and inflammatory biomarkers.
| Author, Year | Study Design | Country | Participants, n | Gender | Age | Study Population |
Outcome | Main Results |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lopes et al., 2019 [54] | Cross-sectional analysis of Longitudinal Study of Adult Health (ELSA-Brasil) baseline cohort | Brazil | 8468 | M/F | 35–74 | General population | CRP | A higher tertile of UPF intake was associated with a 14% increase in CRP levels only among women. Significance was lost when adjusting for BMI. |
| Lane et al., 2022 [55] | Cross-sectional analysis of Melbourne Collaborative Cohort | Australia | 2018 | M/F | 57 ± 9 | General population | hs-CRP | A 100 g increase in UPF consumption was associated with a 4% increase in hs-CRP concentration, independently of BMI. |
| Martins et al., 2022 [56] | Cross-sectional | Brazil | 391 | M/F | 17–18 | General population | Leptin, IL-6, IL-8, CRP TNF- α |
The highest tertiles of UPF intake showed higher levels of CRP and serum leptin and a 79% increase in IL-8 levels. No association was found for IL-6 and TNF-α |
| Silva Dos Santos et al., 2022 [57] | Cross-sectional analysis of EPITeen Cohort and Pelotas Birth Cohort | Brazil, Portugal | 3412 | M/F | 27–30 | General population | IL-6 | A positive association between levels of IL-6 and UPF intake was found among females from the Portugal cohort and males from the Brazil cohort. |
| Kesley et al., 2022 [58] | Cross-sectional analysis of Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort | Norway | 2984 | F | 30 ± 4 | Pregnant women | CRP | An increase UPF intake was associated with a 5.4% increase in CRP levels, even after adjustment for pre-pregnancy BMI |
| Mignogna et al., 2022 [59] | Cross-sectional analysis of Moli-sani cohort | Italy | 21,315 | M/F | 55 ± 3 | General population | INFLA-score E-DII score |
INFLA-score was associated with higher E-DII score and UPF intake. When adjusting for E-DII, the association of UPF with the INFLA-score was mitigated by 32.6% |
| Silva et al., 2019 [60] | Cross-sectional | Brazil | 784 | F | 28 ± 5 | Pregnant women | E-DII score | E-DII score was positively associated with consumption of UPF when adjusting for covariates including pre-pregnancy BMI |
UPF: ultra-processed foods; CRP: C-reactive protein; BMI: body mass index; hs-CRP: high-sensitivity C-reactive protein; IL: interleukin; TNF: tumor necrosis factor; INFLA: low-grade inflammation; E-DII: energy-adjusted dietary inflammatory index.