Convenience foods have transformed the way many people eat.
Frozen meals, packaged desserts, processed meats, sweetened drinks and many packaged snacks save time, but they are also known as ultra-processed foods because they contain ingredients and manufacturing processes rarely used in home cooking.
A new Canadian study suggests these foods could be responsible for a surprisingly large number of heart disease and stroke cases.
The study appeared in The American Journal of Preventive Medicine and was presented at the International Congress on Obesity 2026. Researchers led by Dr. Virginie Hamel and Dr. Jean-Claude Moubarac investigated how reducing ultra-processed food consumption might affect cardiovascular health across Canada.
Cardiovascular disease remains one of the world’s leading health problems. Heart attacks and strokes cause millions of deaths every year and place enormous pressure on healthcare systems. Many risk factors are already well known, including smoking, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity and unhealthy diets.
Ultra-processed foods usually contain added sugars, unhealthy fats, excess salt and many industrial ingredients. They are often designed to be highly appealing, inexpensive and convenient, making them easy to overeat. Over the past decade, researchers have increasingly linked these foods with chronic diseases.
To estimate their impact, the scientists combined Canadian dietary surveys with national disease statistics and information from the Global Burden of Disease Study. They then created different scenarios to predict what might happen if Canadians ate much less or much more ultra-processed food.
The results suggested that nearly half of the average Canadian adult’s daily calorie intake came from ultra-processed foods. According to the model, these dietary habits could account for between 23% and 38% of cardiovascular deaths and a similar proportion of heart disease and stroke cases.
The researchers estimated that cutting ultra-processed food intake by 50% could prevent thousands of deaths and tens of thousands of new cardiovascular cases every year. Such changes could also save many years of healthy life that are currently lost because of disability and early death.
The authors argue that education alone is unlikely to solve the problem because unhealthy products dominate the food supply. They believe governments also have an important role through measures such as front-of-package warning labels, marketing restrictions, taxes on unhealthy products and encouraging companies to improve food quality.
Evidence from countries including Chile and Mexico supports this idea. National nutrition policies in those countries have reduced purchases of some unhealthy products, showing that population-wide strategies can influence eating habits.
The study offers an important estimate of the possible health burden associated with ultra-processed foods, but it is based on modelling rather than direct clinical evidence. This means the results should be viewed as informed estimates rather than exact figures.
Nevertheless, the conclusions are consistent with a growing body of international research linking diets high in ultra-processed foods with poorer heart health. The findings strengthen the case for both healthier personal food choices and broader public health policies.
If you care about heart health, please read studies about how eating eggs can help reduce heart disease risk, and herbal supplements could harm your heart rhythm.
For more health information, please see recent studies about how drinking milk affects risks of heart disease and cancer, and results showing strawberries could help prevent Alzheimer’s disease.
Source: University of Montreal.
