health – Page 3

America’s fragile drug supply chain is extremely vulnerable to climate change

health, hurricane helene, medical supply chain, natural disaster, supply chain shortages, supply chains / Shannon Garcia / August 21, 2025

Vulnerabilities

Using data from the Food and Drug Administration, the researchers identified 10,861 drug facilities that were active for at least one year between 2019 and 2024. These facilities represent the array of manufacturing stages of a drug, from analyzing raw drug materials, to manufacturing active ingredients, to packaging drug products. The researchers then looked at the county location of each of these facilities and whether any federally declared weather emergencies occurred in those counties during the period. Weather-related emergencies included those from fires, hurricanes, storms, tornadoes, and floods.

During the six-year span, 6,819 facilities (63 percent) faced at least one weather-related emergency. Per year, an average of 2,146 facilities (33 percent) experienced such an emergency.

The researchers noted that there was no statistically significant difference in the likelihood that counties with or without a drug facility would experience a weather-related emergency. That is, it’s not the case that drug facilities have been built in areas uniquely vulnerable to climate-related disasters.

Still, with a third of US facilities at risk of weather disasters each year, the study clearly shows how fraught it is to have flimsy supply chains—like having a single plant produce 60 percent of the country’s supply of an essential drug product.

“These findings underscore the importance of recognizing climate-related vulnerabilities and the urgent need for supply chain transparency, for strategic allocation of production, and for disaster risk management strategies to prevent health care disruptions in the US,” the authors conclude.

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Top pediatricians buck RFK Jr.’s anti-vaccine meddling on COVID shot guidance

aap, american academy of pediatrics, anti-vaccine, CDC, childhood vaccines, COVID-19, COVID-19 vaccines, health, kennedy, robert f kennedy jr, vaccines / Shannon Garcia / August 20, 2025

“It’s clear that we’re in a different place in the pandemic than we were four or five years ago in terms of risks to healthy older kids,” Sean O’Leary, chair of the AAP Committee on Infectious Diseases (COID), said in a statement. However, “the risk of hospitalization for young children and those with high-risk conditions remains pretty high.”

According to CDC data, the rate of COVID-19 hospitalization in children under 2 is the highest among any pediatric group. Further, the rate of hospitalization among children 6 months to 23 months is comparable to that of adults ages 50 to 64. Critically, more than half of children ages 6 months to 23 months who are hospitalized for COVID-19 have no underlying medical condition that puts them at high risk for severe infection.

For children 2 to 18, the AAP recommends COVID-19 shots for children who have a medical condition that puts them at high risk, are residents of care facilities, have never been vaccinated, or have household contacts who are at high risk of severe COVID-19. All other children and teens should also have access to updated seasonal shots if they desire them, the AAP says.

“The AAP will continue to provide recommendations for immunizations that are rooted in science and are in the best interest of the health of infants, children, and adolescents,” Kressly said. “Pediatricians know how important routine childhood immunizations are in keeping children, families, and their communities healthy and thriving.”

Coverage questions

With school starting, COVID-19 cases ticking up around the country, and cold-weather respiratory virus season looming, the question now is how the conflicting recommendations will be interpreted by insurance companies. Insurers are required to cover vaccines recommended by the CDC. But there is no such obligation for recommendations from medical groups.

AAP has been holding meetings with insurers to press for continued coverage of evidence-based vaccine recommendations.

O’Leary told The Washington Post that insurers are “signaling that they are committed to covering our recommendations.” The Post also noted that AHIP, the major insurance lobby, released a statement in June saying its members are committed to “ongoing coverage of vaccines to ensure access and affordability for this respiratory virus season.”

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The West Texas measles outbreak has ended

health, measles, measles outbreak, syndication / 9u50fv / August 20, 2025

A large measles outbreak in Texas that has affected 762 people has now ended, according to an announcement Monday by the Texas Department of State Health Services. The agency says it has been more than 42 days since a new case was reported in any of the counties that previously showed evidence of ongoing transmission.

The outbreak has contributed to the worst year for measles cases in the United States in more than 30 years. As of August 5, the most recent update from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a total of 1,356 confirmed measles cases have been reported across the country this year. For comparison, there were just 285 measles cases in 2024.

The Texas outbreak began in January in a rural Mennonite community with low vaccination rates. More than two-thirds of the state’s reported cases were in children, and two children in Texas died of the virus. Both were unvaccinated and had no known underlying conditions. Over the course of the outbreak, a total of 99 people were hospitalized, representing 13 percent of cases.

Measles is a highly contagious respiratory illness that can temporarily weaken the immune system, leaving individuals vulnerable to secondary infections such as pneumonia. In rare cases, it can also lead to swelling of the brain and long-term neurological damage. It can also cause pregnancy complications, such as premature birth and babies with low birth weight. The best way to prevent the disease is the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. One dose of the vaccine is 93 percent effective against measles while two doses is 97 percent effective.

The West Texas measles outbreak has ended Read More »

RFK Jr.’s Wi-Fi and 5G conspiracies appear to make it into MAHA report draft

5G, health, MAHA, robert f kennedy jr, trump administration, vaccines, wi-fi / 9u50fv / August 19, 2025

The Trump administration’s plans to improve Americans’ health will include a push to review the safety of electromagnetic radiation, echoing long-held conspiracy theories and falsehoods about Wi-Fi and 5G touted by health secretary and anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

On Friday, Politico obtained a draft version of the “Make Our Children Healthy Again Strategy,” a highly anticipated report from the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission intended to steer the administration’s health policy. The report, which has not been adopted by the White House, is being viewed as friendly to industry, and it contains little to no policy recommendations or proposed regulations. For instance, it includes no proposed restrictions on pesticides or ultra-processed foods, which are top priorities of the MAHA movement.

Otherwise, the document mainly rehashes the talking points and priorities of Kennedy’s health crusades. That includes attacking water fluoridation, casting doubt on the safety of childhood vaccines, pushing for more physical activity in children to reduce chronic diseases, getting rid of synthetic food dyes, and claiming that children are being overprescribed medications.

Notably, the report does not mention the leading causes of death for American children, which are firearms and motor vehicle accidents. Cancer, another top killer, is only mentioned in the context of pushing new AI technologies at the National Institutes of Health. Poisonings, another top killer, are also not mentioned explicitly.

While the importance of water quality is raised in the report, it’s only in the context of fluoride and not of any other key contaminants, such as lead or PFAS. And although the draft strategy will prioritize “whole, minimally processed foods,” it offers no strategy for reducing the proportion of ultra-processed food (UPF) in Americans’ diets. The strategy merely aims to come up with a “government-wide definition” for UPF to guide future research and policies.

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Anti-vaccine RFK Jr. creates vaccine panel of anti-vaccine group’s dreams

anti-vaccine, childhood vaccines, health, mRNA, robert f kennedy jr, vaccines / 9u50fv / August 16, 2025

Immediate concern

It’s possible that Kennedy did not immediately set up the task force because the necessary leadership was not in place. The 1986 law says the task force “shall consist of consist of the Director of the National Institutes of Health, the Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, and the Director of the Centers for Disease Control [and Prevention].” But a CDC director was only confirmed and sworn in at the end of July.

With Susan Monarez now at the helm at CDC, the Department of Health and Human Services said Thursday that the task force is being revived, though it will be led by the NIH.

“By reinstating this Task Force, we are reaffirming our commitment to rigorous science, continuous improvement, and the trust of American families,” NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya said in the announcement. “NIH is proud to lead this effort to advance vaccine safety and support innovation that protects children without compromise.”

Kennedy’s anti-vaccine group cheered the move on social media, saying it was “grateful” that Kennedy was fulfilling his duty.

Outside health experts were immediately concerned by the move.

“What I am concerned about is making sure that we don’t overemphasize very small risks [of vaccines] and underestimate the real risk of infectious diseases and cancers that these vaccines help prevent,” Anne Zink, Alaska’s former chief medical officer, told The Washington Post.

David Higgins, a pediatrician and preventive medicine specialist at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, worried about eroding trust in vaccines, telling the Post, “I am concerned that bringing this committee back implies to the public that we have not been looking at vaccine safety. The reality is, we evaluate the safety of vaccines more than any other medication, medical intervention, or supplements available.”

Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, worried about a more direct attack on vaccines, telling CNN, “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is an anti-vaccine activist who has these fixed, immutable, science-resistant beliefs that vaccines are dangerous. He is in a position now to be able to set up task forces like this one [that] will find some way to support his notion that vaccines are doing more harm than good.”

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Bat colony checks in to hotel; 200 guests check out, unaware of rabies scare

bats, Exposure, health, infectious, rabies, risk, wyoming / Shannon Garcia / August 13, 2025

Health officials in Wyoming are sinking their teeth into a meaty task.

Over 200 people who stayed in a hotel in Grand Teton National Park between May and July may have unknowingly been exposed to rabies, according to Wyoming Public Radio.

In an announcement on Friday, the National Park Service reported finding evidence of a bat colony in the attic. The discovery was made after there had been at least eight incidents in which guests encountered winged mammals inside the hotel.

Now, the Wyoming Health Department is trying to contact all guests who stayed in a block of rooms under the bat’s lair. Specifically, they’re reaching out to the over 200 who stayed in rooms 516, 518, 520, 522, 524, 526, 528, and 530 at the Jackson Lake Lodge between May 15 and July 27. It was on July 27 that the eighth bat run-in occurred and the hotel closed the eight rooms.

“Although there were a lot of people exposed in this incident, one positive about it is that we know who 100 percent of those people are,” Travis Riddell, director of the Teton County Public Health Department, told Wyoming Public Radio.

In Wyoming, bats are one of the two main carriers of rabies, the other being skunks. But bats are of particular concern because—unlike an extremely obvious skunk attack—people might not be aware of bat exposures.

Inconspicuous risk

The rabies virus generally transmits through saliva via bites and scratches, and bat bites and scratches are easy to miss. The most common bat in Wyoming is the small brown bat, which weighs less than half an ounce on average—though they can look larger due to their wide wings. These teeny bats, with their wee teeth, can leave bites and scratches that are not visible, do not bleed, and are not painful.

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Worm invades man’s eyeball, leading doctors to suck out his eye jelly

eyeball, eyes, health, infection, parasites, worms / 9u50fv / August 13, 2025

For eight months, a 35-year-old man in India was bothered by his left eye. It was red and blurry. When he finally visited an ophthalmology clinic, it didn’t take long for doctors to unearth the cause.

In a case report in the New England Journal of Medicine, doctors report that they first noted that the eye was bloodshot and inflamed, and the pupil was dilated and fixed. The man’s vision in the eye was 20/80. A quick look inside his eye revealed it was all due to a small worm, which they watched “moving sluggishly” in the back of his eyeball.

To gouge out the parasitic pillager, the doctors performed a pars plana vitrectomy—a procedure that involves sucking out some of the jelly-like vitreous inside the eye. This procedure can be used in the treatment of a variety of eye conditions, but using it to hoover up worms is rare. In order to get in, the doctors make tiny incisions in the white parts of the eye (the sclera) and use a hollow needle-like device with suction. They replace extracted eye jelly with things like saline.

In this case, the device was able to suck in part of the worm’s tail and drag it out—still squirming. Under the microscope, they quickly identified the peeper creeper. With a bulbous head, well-formed intestines, and a thick outer layer, it perfectly fit the description of Gnathostoma spinigerum, a known bodily marauder that can sometimes wiggle its way into eyeballs.

Panel A shows the pars plana vitrectomy removing the worm; Panel B shows the worm under light microscopy, revealing a larval-stage nematode with a cephalic bulb, thick cuticle, and well-developed intestine. Credit: New England Journal of Medicine, 2025

Stomach-churning cycle

G. spinigerum are endemic parasites in India that infect carnivorous mammals, particularly wild and domestic cats and dogs. In these primary hosts, adult worms form tumor-like masses on the walls of the animals’ intestinal tracts. There, the adults mate, and the mass erupts like an infernal, infectious volcano, spewing out eggs. The eggs are passed in the animals’ feces and can then spread to intermediate hosts. These include freshwater plankton, which get eaten by fish and amphibians, which then get eaten by the cats and dogs to complete the cycle. The young parasites can also be taken up by dead-end hosts like birds, including chickens, and snakes—these are called paratenic hosts.

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Boar’s Head to reopen plant as mold and funky meat problems pop up elsewhere

boar's head, deli meat, food-borne diseases, health, listeria, outbreak, sanitation / DJ Henderson / August 12, 2025

Boar’s Head plans to reopen the Jarratt, Virginia, facility at the center of a deadly Listeria outbreak last year despite federal inspections continuing to find sanitation violations at three of the food company’s other facilities, according to federal records obtained by The Associated Press.

The AP obtained 35 pages of inspection reports via a Freedom of Information Act Request. Those reports cover inspections between January 1 and July 23 at three other Boar’s Head facilities: Forrest City, Arkansas; New Castle, Indiana; and Petersburg, Virginia. Overall, the reports reveal a suite of violations, including mold, condensation dripping over food areas, overflowing trash, meat and fat residue built up on walls and equipment, drains blocked with meat scraps, and pooling meat juice. The reports also recorded staff who didn’t wear the proper protective hairnets and aprons—and didn’t wash their hands.

In one violation, reported in the Petersburg facility, inspectors found meat waste collecting under equipment, including “5-6 hams, 4 large pieces of meat and a large quantity of pooling meat juice.”

The problems echo the sanitation violations recorded at the Jarratt plant before contamination with Listeria—particularly linked to the company’s liverwurst—caused an outbreak that led officials to shut it down. That outbreak spanned July to November of last year and sickened 61 people across 19 states, hospitalizing 60 and killing 10. Inspection reports revealed problems with mold, water leaks, dirty equipment and rooms, meat debris stuck on walls and equipment, various bugs, and, at one point, puddles of blood on the floor.

Amid the outbreak response, Boar’s Head vowed to make big changes to improve its food safety systems. Those included setting up a panel of food safety advisers, which included Frank Yiannas, a former Food and Drug Administration official, and Mindy Brashears, who served as the US Department of Agriculture undersecretary for food safety during Trump’s first term and has been nominated for the position again in Trump’s second.

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Texas prepares for war as invasion of flesh-eating flies appears imminent

cattle, flesh-eating, flies, health, livestock, mexico, Science, screwworms, sterile insect technique, swormlure, texas, USDA / Beth Washington / August 9, 2025

Past success

As the flies’ host and geographic range expand, pressure is intensifying to control the flies—something many countries have managed to do in the past.

Decades ago, screwworms were endemic throughout Central America and the southern US. However, governments across the regions used intensive, coordinated control efforts to push the flies southward. Screwworms were eliminated from the US around 1966, and were pushed downward through Mexico in the 1970s and 1980s. They were eventually declared eliminated from Panama in 2006, with the population held at bay by a biological barrier at the Darién Gap, at the border of Panama and Colombia. However, in 2022, the barrier was breached, and the flies began advancing northward, primarily through unmonitored livestock movements. The latest surveillance suggests the flies are now about 370 miles south of Texas.

The main method to wipe out screwworms is the sterile insect technique (SIT), which exploits a weakness in the fly’s life cycle since they tend to only mate once. In the 1950s, researchers at the US Department of Agriculture figured out they could use gamma radiation to sterilize male flies without affecting their ability to find mates. They then bred massive amounts of male flies, sterilized them, and carpet-bombed infested areas with aerial releases, which tanked the population.

Panama, in partnership with the US, maintained the biological barrier at the Colombian border with continual sterile-fly bombings for years. But as the flies approached this year, the USDA shifted its aerial deliveries to Mexico. In June, the USDA announced plans to set up a new sterile fly facility in Texas for aerial deliveries to northern Mexico. And last month, the USDA halted livestock trade from southern entry points.

Miller said in the announcement today that SIT is no longer enough, and Texas is taking its own steps. Those include the new bait, insecticides, and new feed for livestock and deer laced with the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin. Miller also said that the state aims to develop a vaccine for cattle that could kill larvae, but such a shot is still in development.

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After using ChatGPT, man swaps his salt for sodium bromide—and suffers psychosis

AI, bromism, chatgpt, health / Kelly Newman / August 8, 2025

After seeking advice on health topics from ChatGPT, a 60-year-old man who had a “history of studying nutrition in college” decided to try a health experiment: He would eliminate all chlorine from his diet, which for him meant eliminating even table salt (sodium chloride). His ChatGPT conversations led him to believe that he could replace his sodium chloride with sodium bromide, which he obtained over the Internet.

Three months later, the man showed up at his local emergency room. His neighbor, he said, was trying to poison him. Though extremely thirsty, the man was paranoid about accepting the water that the hospital offered him, telling doctors that he had begun distilling his own water at home and that he was on an extremely restrictive vegetarian diet. He did not mention the sodium bromide or the ChatGPT discussions.

His distress, coupled with the odd behavior, led the doctors to run a broad set of lab tests, revealing multiple micronutrient deficiencies, especially in key vitamins. But the bigger problem was that the man appeared to be suffering from a serious case of “bromism.” That is, an excess amount of the element bromine had built up in his body.

A century ago, somewhere around 8–10 percent of all psychiatric admissions in the US were caused by bromism. That’s because, then as now, people wanted sedatives to calm their anxieties, to blot out a cruel world, or simply to get a good night’s sleep. Bromine-containing salts—things like potassium bromide—were once drugs of choice for this sort of thing.

Unfortunately, bromide can easily build up in the human body, where too much of it impairs nerve function. This causes a wide variety of problems, including grotesque skin rashes (warning: the link is exactly what it sounds like) and significant mental problems, which are all grouped under the name of “bromism.”

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RFK Jr. defends $500M cut for mRNA vaccines with pseudoscience gobbledygook

antigen, flu, health, kennedy, pandemic, SARS-CoV-2, vaccine, virus / Shannon Garcia / August 7, 2025

He clearly has no idea what antigenic shift means.

US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testifies before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions on Capitol Hill on May 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. Credit: Getty | Tasos Katopodis

If anyone needed a reminder that US health secretary and fervent anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has no background in science or medicine, look no further than the video he posted on social media Tuesday evening.

In the two-and-a-half-minute clip, Kennedy announced that he is cancelling nearly $500 million in funding for the development of mRNA-based vaccines against diseases that pose pandemic threats. The funding will be clawed back from 22 now-defunct contracts awarded through the federal agency tasked with developing medical countermeasures to public health threats. The agency is the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA).

Kennedy is generally opposed to vaccines, but he is particularly hostile to mRNA-based vaccines. Since the remarkably successful debut of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic—which were developed and mass-produced with unprecedented speed—Kennedy has continually disparaged and spread misinformation about them.

In the video on Tuesday, Kennedy continued that trend, erroneously saying that, “as the pandemic showed us, mRNA vaccines don’t perform well against viruses that infect the upper respiratory tract.” In reality, COVID-19 vaccines are estimated to have saved more than 3 million lives in the US in just the first two years of the pandemic and additionally prevented more than 18 million hospitalizations in the US in that time. Nearly all COVID-19 vaccines used in the US are mRNA-based.

However, Kennedy’s video only went more off the rails from there. He continued on with this nonsensical explanation:

Here’s the problem: mRNA only codes for a small part of viral proteins usually a single antigen. One mutation, and the vaccine becomes ineffective. This dynamic drives a phenomenon called antigenic shift meaning that the vaccine paradoxically encourages new mutations and can actually prolong pandemics as the virus constantly mutates to escape the protective effects of the vaccine.

Fact-check

To unpack this nonsense, let’s start with how mRNA-based vaccines work. These vaccines deliver a snippet of genetic code—in the form of messenger RNA (mRNA)—to cells. Our cells then translate that mRNA code into a protein that the immune system can, essentially, use for target practice, producing antibodies and cell-based responses against it. After that, if the immune system ever encounters that snippet on an actual invading virus or other germ, it will then recognize it and mount a protective response. Such snippets of germs or other harmful things that can prompt an immune response are generally called antigens.

In the case of COVID-19 vaccines, the mRNA snippet codes for a portion of the SARS-CoV-2 virus’s spike protein, which is a critical external protein that the virus uses to attach to and infect cells. That portion of the spike protein is considered an antigen.

SARS-CoV-2, including its spike protein, is continually evolving, regardless of whether people are vaccinated or not, let alone what type of vaccine they’ve received. The virus racks up mutations as it continuously replicates. Some of these mutations help a virus evade immune responses, whether they’re from vaccination or previous infection. These immune-evading mutations can accumulate and give rise to new variants or strains, making it part of a process called antigenic drift (not shift). Antigenic drift does reduce the efficacy of vaccines over time. It’s why, for example, people can get influenza repeatedly in their lifetimes, and why flu shots are updated annually. However, it does not mean that vaccines are immediately rendered ineffective upon single mutations, as Kennedy says.

For example, the current leading SARS-CoV-2 variant in the US is NB.1.8.1, which has six notable mutations in its spike protein compared to the previous leading variant, LP.8.1. Further, NB.1.8.1 has seven notable spike mutations compared to the JN.1 variant, an ancestor for this line of variants. Yet, studies suggest that current mRNA COVID-19 vaccines targeting JN.1 are still effective against NB.1.8.1. In fact, the Food and Drug Administration, in line with its expert advisors, left open the possibility that vaccine makers could carry over the same JN.1-targeting seasonal COVID-19 vaccine formula from last season for use in this season.

Drift vs. shift

While antigenic drift is an accumulation of small, immune-evading mutations over time, Kennedy mentioned antigenic shift, which is something different. Antigenic shift is much more dramatic, infrequent, and is typically discussed in the context of influenza viruses, which have segmented genomes. Antigenic shift is often defined as “the reassortment of viral gene segments between various influenza viruses of human or zoological origin, which leads to the emergence of new strains.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gives an example of such a shift in 2009. That’s when a new influenza virus with a collection of genome segments from influenza viruses found in North American swine, Eurasian swine, humans, and birds emerged to cause the H1N1 pandemic.

In the video, Kennedy went on to muddle these concepts of drifts and shifts, saying:

Millions of people maybe even you or someone you know caught the omicron variant despite being vaccinated, that’s because a single mutation can make mRNA vaccines ineffective.

Among the COVID-19 variants that have risen to dominance only to be quickly usurped, there’s usually a small handful of mutations—like the examples above with six or seven mutations in the spike protein. But omicron was a different story. Omicron emerged carrying an extremely large suite of mutations—there were 37 mutations in its spike protein compared to its predecessors. Kennedy’s suggestion that it rose to prominence because of a single mutation is egregiously false.

However, due to the extreme number of mutations, some researchers have suggested that omicron does represent an antigenic shift for SARS-CoV-2. Although the pandemic virus—which is a coronavirus—does not have a segmented genome, the “magnitude of Omicron-mediated immune evasion” fits with an antigenic shift, the researchers said.

“Highly vulnerable”

While long-term drifts and rare shifts can reduce the effectiveness of vaccines, creating the need for updated shots, the point only bolsters the case for using mRNA vaccines in the event of another health emergency. Currently, no other vaccine platform beats the development and production speeds of mRNA vaccines. Kennedy said that instead of mRNA vaccines, he’ll shift to developing vaccines using strategies like whole-virus vaccines. But this decades-old strategy requires growing up large supplies of virus in eggs or cell culture, which takes months longer than mRNA vaccines. Further, using whole, inactivated viruses can often produce more side effects than other types of vaccines because they include more antigens.

Overall, experts were aghast that Kennedy has abandoned mRNA vaccines for pandemic preparedness programs. One expert, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisal, told Stat News: “It’s self-evident that this is the single best technology we have now to rapidly produce a vaccine for the largest number of people,” the expert said. “And you are throwing away a technology which was exceedingly valuable in saving lives during the most recent pandemic.”

Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, told the outlet that the move “leaves us highly vulnerable. Highly vulnerable.”

Beth is Ars Technica’s Senior Health Reporter. Beth has a Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and attended the Science Communication program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She specializes in covering infectious diseases, public health, and microbes.

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In trial, people lost twice as much weight by ditching ultraprocessed food

diet, health, nutrition, obesity, trial, ultraprocessed foods, weight / 9u50fv / August 6, 2025

In a small randomized controlled trial, people lost twice as much weight when their diet was limited to minimally processed food compared to when they switched to a diet that included ultraprocessed versions of foods but was otherwise nutritionally matched.

The trial, published in Nature Medicine by researchers at University College London, adds to a growing body of evidence that food processing, in addition to simple nutrition content, influences our weight and health. Ultraprocessed foods have already been vilified for their link to obesity—largely through weaker observational studies—but researchers have struggled to shore up the connection with high-quality studies and understand their impact on health.

The ultraprocessed foods researchers provided in the new trial were relatively healthy ones—as ultraprocessed foods go. They included things like multigrain breakfast cereal, packaged granola bars, flavored yogurt cups, fruit snacks, commercially premade chicken sandwiches, instant noodles, and ready-made lasagna. But, in the minimally processed trial diet, participants received meals from a caterer rather than ones from a grocery store aisle. The diet included overnight oats with fresh fruit, plain yogurt with toasted oats and fruit, handmade fruit and nut bars, freshly made chicken salad, and from-scratch stir fry and spaghetti Bolognese.

While the level of processing differed between the diets, the large-scale nutrition content—fat, protein, carbohydrates, fiber—were similar, as was the proportions of fruits, vegetables, dairy, and starchy food. Overall, both diets adhered to the dietary guidance from the UK government, called the Eatwell Guide (EWG).

Diet processing

The trial had a crossover design, meaning that participants were randomly split to start out on either the ultraprocessed food (UPF) diet or the minimally processed food (MPF) diet. They stayed on their starter diet for eight weeks, then took a break, and switched to the other diet. For both diets, food was delivered directly to the participants’ homes. Participants ate what they wanted and, mostly, didn’t seem to cheat by sneaking other food, based on food diaries and reported adherence.

Fifty participants completed at least one diet, while 43 completed both diets. The participants were mostly women, with a mean age of 43, and all had a body mass index categorized as overweight or obesity. At the start of the trial, ultraprocessed foods made up, on average, nearly 70 percent of the participants’ standard diets, and they were not adhering to the EWG recommendations.

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