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Ultra-processed foods – such as ice cream, processed meats, crisps, mass-produced bread, some breakfast cereals, biscuits, many ready meals and fizzy drinks – are a leading cause of the "chronic disease pandemic", say the authors of a new study. London (PA Media/dpa) – Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) are a leading cause of the “chronic disease pandemic” linked to diet, with food firms putting profit above all else, global experts have warned. Writing in The Lancet medical journal, 43 scientists and researchers joined forces to argue that UPFs are “displacing” fresh foods and meals, worsening diet quality, and are linked to multiple chronic diseases. They said: “The key driver of the global rise in UPFs is the growing economic and political power of the UPF industry, and its restructuring of food systems for profitability above all else. “The industry comprises UPF manufacturers at its core, but also a broader network of co-dependent actors who collectively drive the production, marketing and consumption of UPFs.” UPFs have been linked to poor health, including an increased risk of obesity, heart disease, cancer and early death. Examples of UPFs include ice cream, processed meats, crisps, mass-produced bread, some breakfast cereals, biscuits, many ready meals and fizzy drinks. UPFs often contain high levels of saturated fat, salt, sugar and additives, which experts say leaves less room in people’s diets for more nutritious foods. UPFs also tend to include additives and ingredients that are not used when people cook from scratch, such as preservatives, emulsifiers and artificial colours and flavours. Writing in The Lancet, the global team said that, although some countries have brought in rules to reformulate foods and control UPFs, “the global public health response is still nascent, akin to where the tobacco control movement was decades ago”. They said government policy, including in high income countries like the UK, has done little to change the “commercial and structural determinants of the problem”, instead focusing on consumer responsibility, industry partnerships, and voluntary self-regulation in industry, such as when companies replace sugar in some foods with sweeteners, or reduce fat. “This policy inertia reflects the co-ordinated efforts of the industry to skew decision making, frame policy debates in their interest, and manufacture the appearance of scientific doubt,” they said. They argue that the main barrier to policies to protect health is “industry’s corporate political activities, coordinated transnationally through a global network of front groups, multi-stakeholder initiatives, and research partners, to counter opposition and block regulation.” These activities include direct lobbying, “infiltrating government agencies”, and filing lawsuits, they added. The experts argue that the “continuing rise of UPFs in human diets is not inevitable” and, while research into their effects continues, this should not delay policies aimed at promoting diets based on whole foods. The dietary share of UPFs remains below 25% in countries such as Italy, Cyprus, Greece, Portugal and across Asia, but it is 50% in the US and UK, the research said. Action is needed now to tackle UPFs directly rather than relying on current measures, it added. Professor Chris Van Tulleken, from University College London, one of the authors, told a press briefing there had been a “three-decade history of reformulation by the food industry”. He added: “We took the fat out first, then we took the sugar out. We replaced the sugar with the sweeteners, the fats with gums. These products have been extensively reformulated and we have seen obesity, particularly obesity in childhood and other rates of diet-related disease persistently go up in line with reformulation. “This is not a product level discussion. The entire diet is being ultra-processed. “And remember that built into the definition of ultra-processed food is its purpose. Its purpose is for profit. And so as long as you’re reformulating, if your purpose is still profit, you’re unlikely to cause positive health outcomes.” Several experts commenting on the Lancet papers called for more, better quality research into the impact of UPFs, adding that current studies have shown a link with poor health but not a direct cause. Kevin McConway, emeritus professor of applied statistics at the Open University, said “it seems to me likely that at least some UPFs could cause increases in the risk of some chronic diseases (certainly not all – there’s little evidence of an increase in cancer risk, for instance). “But this certainly doesn’t establish that all UPFs increase disease risk. “There’s still room for doubt and for clarification from further research.” He said he was not advocating that no public health action about UPFs is taken until all the research gaps have been filled but said there was a need for “transparency” about “what we have good evidence for and what we don’t.” Professor Jules Griffin, from the University of Aberdeen, said the authors had shown “a wide range of chronic diseases are associated with increased consumption of ultra-processed foods” but “association may not be causation, as the authors freely admit”. The following information is not intended for publication pa dpa coh

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Washington (dpa) – It's something well familiar to many who have tried to muster up the motivation to head to the pub after a few joints. But there is now also hard evidence that smoking weed can lead people to drink less alcohol, say the team behind new research. In a study led by Brown University researchers, volunteers were given a mix of marijuana of varying potency levels and placebos – after which they were "offered servings of their preferred alcoholic beverage on a tray" or the option of cash in lieu. Participants were less inclined to take a drink if they had smoked a joint rather than a placebo, the researchers found, cautioning that the results "don’t mean that cannabis should be recommended as a therapeutic substitute for alcohol." "Cannabis reduced the urge for alcohol in the moment, lowered how much alcohol people consumed over a two-hour period and even delayed when they started drinking once the alcohol was available," Jane Metrik, a psychiatry professor, describing the team's findings. The authors warned that "cannabis itself can be addictive and that — just as is the case is for alcohol — there is risk for progressing to problematic use of cannabis, as well." Published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, the research was based on a series of laboratory visits by 157 participants described as heavy drinkers who smoke cannabis at least twice a week. The following information is not intended for publication dpa spr coh

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Beijing (dpa) – People unconsciously blink in time with the rhythm of music they are listening to, according to a study published in PLOS Biology by researchers in China. "We found that people’s spontaneous eye blinks fall in step with the musical beat — even without being told to move," said co-author Yi Du of the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, sharing her surprise at the phenomenon. "What surprised us most was how reliably a 'small-movement' like blinking locks to the beat — it’s a tiny action that reveals a deep coordination between hearing and action, which we did not expect at all," Yi Du was quoted as saying. For the investigation, the team analysed the behaviour of 123 young adults while they listened to Bach chorales. None of the participants had musical training. The researchers measured their brain activity and eye movements, and found that blinking was linked to a neural response to the rhythm. They interpreted this as an indication that the brain closely tracks the structure of sounds, but only when attention is directed at the music. In a further experiment, participants had to detect a red dot on a screen while listening, and the result was that blinking no longer kept time. The researchers attributed this to the musical patterns being processed less strongly. The following information is not intended for publication dpa pls yyzz n1 may

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The long-debunked theory that childhood vaccines cause autism has returned to the spotlight, fueled by the rise of prominent anti-vaccine activists nearly three decades after its initial spread. Where did the “vaccines cause autism” theory come from? Dallas (tca/dpa) – In the late 1990s, a theory gripped parents around the world: What if childhood vaccines — particularly the combined measles-mumps-rubella vaccine — cause autism? Nearly three decades later, the debunked theory has gained renewed prominence in parallel with the rise of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a long-time anti-vaccine activist who now serves as the US health secretary. Scientists, medical providers and medical researchers are clear on this: Vaccines do not cause autism. To those tuning into the vaccine debate now, it can feel like scientists are dismissing the theory without considering it. But there’s a reason. There has already been a mountain of research investigating vaccines and debunking any connection with autism. Scientists have reached a consensus on this one. Here’s how. Where did the “vaccines cause autism” theory come from? The idea that vaccines cause autism, or at least the popularity of that idea, can be traced to a 1998 research paper. In that paper, then-physician Andrew Wakefield and his co-authors hypothesized that the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine could trigger a combination of gastrointestinal problems and neurodevelopmental “regression” consistent with autism. Wakefield, who is British, published the article in the well-respected scientific journal The Lancet. The paper had a dozen co-authors. (That paper, and Wakefield himself, have since been resoundingly discredited. But let’s take this in chronological order.) The paper, in its initial form, had numerous red flags, including a small sample size of 12 children. Additionally, the paper itself did not claim to actually prove the connection. “We did not prove an association between measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and the syndrome described,” the article says. “Virological studies are underway that may help to resolve this issue.” Even with the original paper’s caveats and limitations, the theory captured the public attention and was simplified to the idea that vaccines cause autism. Researchers and medical professionals have pointed to the paper as one major cause of dropping childhood vaccination rates. The scientific community took note of the paper, too, and responded in the way that science should: By testing the hypothesis again and again. Did other scientists *really* look into Wakefield’s idea? In the years after the Wakefield paper, researchers around the world embarked on studies to look for any link between the MMR vaccine and autism. David Amaral — the founding research director at the MIND Institute at UC Davis, an autism research center — has worked in autism research since the late 1990s, around the same time as the Wakefield paper’s publication. He remembers the flurry of research triggered by the vaccine theory. There was a 1999 epidemiological study in the U.K., published in the same journal that published Wakefield’s paper the year before. There was a 2001 study in California. There was a 2002 study of more than half a million children in Denmark. There was another 2002 study of more than half a million children, this time in Finland. These four examples are just a sampling of the studies on vaccines and neurodevelopmental disorders. There have been many other studies, too. The Autism and Science Foundation has compiled a lengthy list that includes at least 11 additional research studies and analyses related to vaccines and autism. Dr. Jake Scott, a Stanford Medicine professor and an infectious disease specialist, has spearheaded a compilation of randomized controlled trials — which are often cited as the gold standard of research — related to vaccines and vaccine safety. That spreadsheet, Scott wrote in early September federal testimony, has catalogued more than 1,700 studies. “If vaccines caused a wave of chronic disease, our safety systems – which can detect 1-in-a-million events – would have seen it,” Scott wrote in his testimony. “They haven’t.” What did those other studies find? A number of the studies conducted after the Wakefield paper focused on rates of autism among children who had been vaccinated and children who hadn’t. If the MMR vaccine — or another vaccine — did cause or increase the risk of autism, then there should be higher rates of autism among vaccinated children. This was a reality that Wakefield and his co-authors directly addressed in their original paper. “If there is a causal link between measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and this syndrome,” the paper says, “a rising incidence might be anticipated after the introduction of this vaccine in the UK in 1988.” Scientists and researchers had the same thought. “If there was a link between the vaccines, you should at least see some signal,” Amaral said. “You should see some evidence of it.” But, in follow-up study after follow-up study, researchers found no such evidence. The 1999 UK study authors wrote that their “analyses do not support a causal association between MMR vaccine and autism.” “This study provides strong evidence against the hypothesis that MMR vaccination causes autism,” said the authors of the massive Denmark study. And on and on. The studies repeatedly came back with the same conclusion: No evidence of a link between the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine and autism. That matters because, in the scientific world, a single study cannot prove anything. When a researcher finds a new or important link, other researchers set off on the task of replicating that finding. This is to ensure that the link really does exist, that it wasn’t a mistake by the original researcher, a poorly designed study or simply a fluke. (Spoiler alert: That scientific process also aims to root out deliberate research fraud.) It is only when a finding can be repeated by other researchers that the scientific community reaches “consensus” and agrees that a hypothesis does, indeed, appear to be true. When other researchers set out to validate — or replicate — Wakefield’s study, they couldn’t. It was a death knell for Wakefield’s hypothesis. Dr. Jason Terk, a pediatrician in North Texas, started practicing in 1998, the same year the Wakefield paper was published. “In good faith, the medical community tried to answer the question and it was a very clear answer,” Terk said, “that there was no evidence to support the connection that was raised by this paper.” Even after extensive research, scientists tend to be hesitant to frame anything as an absolute. If there’s a hair’s width opening for a possible other explanation, researchers tend to hedge their statements, to leave room for that extraordinarily unlikely other explanation. In the case of vaccines and autism, though, researchers have come as close to absolute proof as they can. “There is literally no evidence that vaccines cause autism,” said Katherine Meltzoff, a University of California, Riverside professor and autism researcher. “It’s been studied and restudied and restudied almost infinite times since the initial, fraudulent 1998 paper came out.” What happened to Wakefield and his paper? As evidence mounted against Wakefield’s hypothesis and his 1998 paper, The Lancet investigated allegations that the paper’s results may have been fabricated or otherwise manipulated. In 2004, 10 of the 12 co-authors retracted the interpretation of the original data in the paper. Six years after that, the journal retracted the entire article, citing “false” statements in the study, including in how the authors recruited patients. The British medical board, called the General Medical Council, looked into the situation, too. In a report, the council detailed numerous instanc…

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