Bowel cancer may be caused by ultra-processed foods like biscuits, study suggests

Ultra-processed foods include items such as biscuits, sweets, sugary drinks, ready meals and instant soups and noodles.

Academics in the US examined data taken from three major long-term health studies involving more than 46,000 men and almost 160,000 women.

These participants were tracked for between 24 and 28 years, during which 3,216 cases of bowel cancer were found.

Through this they found that compared to those who ate the lowest amount of ultra-processed food, men who ate the most were 29% more likely to have developed bowel cancer.

Ready meal consumption was linked to bowel cancer for some men and women (PA) (Image: PA)

However, this specific link was not found among women.

Looking at specific foods women who ate ready meals had a 17% increased risk of bowel cancer compared to those in the lowest consumption group.

Meanwhile, ready meals which contained meat, poultry or seafood were more likely to cause a risk for men.

Men were also linked with a higher risk of bowel cancer through consuming sugary drinks, being 21% more likely to develop bowel cancer compared to those who drank the least.

The authors of the study in the BMJ wrote: “High consumption of total ultra-processed foods in men and certain subgroups of ultra-processed foods in men and women was associated with an increased risk of colorectal cancer."

They said that ultra-processed foods make up 57% of total daily calories consumed by American adults, a figure which has been continuously increasing over the last two decades.

A separate study from the same journal in Italy looked at food consumption among 23,000 participants in which 2,205 of died during the follow-up period.

They found that adults with the lowest quality diet and the highest ultra-processed food consumption were more likely to have died during the follow-up period when compared to those who had better diets and ate the least amount of ultra-processed food.