The UK is facing rising levels of ill health.
The chronic disease escalation is primarily related to food intake,
there's no question about it.
There's growing concern about some of the food we eat.
We're consuming too much ultra-processed food.
People consuming more ultra-processed food
have higher risk of disease and death.
Panorama investigates the possible links
between artificial sweeteners and serious illness.
The higher the dose that was given,
the higher the numbers of tumours that we observed.
Exclusive new evidence linking food additives to cancer.
We observed significant associations between emulsifier intake
and increased risk of cancer overall.
And we ask, "Are regulators doing enough to keep our food safe?"
This really is a future time bomb.
It's a complete disaster and we're sleepwalking into it.
This is Aimee,
and this is Nancy.
They're 24 and identical twins.
That's 30, or 1.60.5.
Lovely. Step forward.
So, Aimee and Nancy, what we want to do is to look at
how food processing impacts your health.
They're taking part in a test to explore the impact
of ultra-processed food on their health.
What we're going to be doing today is a lot of different tests
to look at your baseline health measures.
And then what you're going to do is for two weeks,
Nancy, you're going to be doing the unprocessed diet
and Aimee, you're going to be eating the ultra-processed diet.
Then we're going to get you back here
and then we're going to do the same tests again
and look at how these different foods have impacted your health.
Ultra-processed foods are hugely popular,
from ready meals to some bread, crisps and snacks.
Across Europe, ultra-processed food
makes up about a quarter of the diet,
but here in the UK, the figures are much higher.
Ultra-processed food accounts for more than 50% of our energy intake
in the UK across adults,
and it's an even bigger problem in children.
So it accounts for about 65% of our energy intake for children.
This is actually increasing at an alarming rate.
Ultra-processed food is relatively cheap, convenient
and can have a longer shelf life.
It's mass produced
and its nutritional content is often altered.
We believe ultra-processed food's having an unfavourable effect
on our health because the act of processing foods
breaks down the structure of the foods.
Often ultra-processed foods have very little fibre in them,
or the fibre is removed.
And ultra-processed food often contains chemical additives.
Many of these ingredients most people won't have heard of.
But what we don't know is how all of these different chemicals
might interact together in terms of our health.
Because Aimee and Nancy are identical twins,
it's easier to compare how their bodies react to the food they eat.
Their diets will contain exactly the same amount of calories,
nutrients, fat, sugar and fibre.
But only Aimee will be eating the ultra-processed food,
containing chemical additives.
I do eat some processed foods just out of convenience
but I do love lots of fresh foods
and have quite a healthy diet,
I think, so I think it is going to be a bit of a shift.
There are many reasons for chronic ill health, like smoking,
drinking too much and lack of exercise.
We already know too much salt,
fat and sugar in our diet can be bad for us.
Now, there's an increasing focus on ultra-processed food.
My name is Tim Spector.
I'm a Professor of Epidemiology at King's College, London.
In the last decade, the evidence has been slowly growing
that ultra-processed food is harmful for us in ways we hadn't thought.
We're talking about all varieties of cancers.
We're talking about heart disease, strokes, dementia.
Many of these products may have 20 chemicals,
and there can be emulsifiers, preservatives, artificial sweeteners
which have negative effects on our body.
One of the most controversial chemical additives often used
in ultra-processed food is the sweetener aspartame.
200 times sweeter than sugar,
it's used in thousands of products,
often marketed as low-calorie.
There have been questions about its safety
over the last two decades.
In 2006, scientists in Italy began studying aspartame.
I'm Daniele Mandrioli,
I'm the director of the Cesare Maltoni Cancer Research Centre
of the Ramazzini Institute.
We gave mice and rats aspartame
with a human-equivalent exposure.
It was the largest study ever performed on aspartame.
Our findings was that aspartame
was capable of inducing a number
of cancer in different organs.
Although the experiment was on rodents,
the Ramazzini scientists were concerned
aspartame might also be harmful to humans.
The higher the dose that was given,
the higher the numbers of tumours
that we observed.
These are all cancer cells
that are invading the liver.
Nervous system tumours,
mammary cancer,
kidney, leukaemia.
Since then, aspartame has been studied many times.
Some scientists raised similar concerns, while others questioned
the quality of the Ramazzini studies
and said there was nothing to worry about.
In 2013, the European Food Safety Authority agreed,
saying aspartame was safe.
My name is Erik Millstone and I am
an Emeritus Professor of Science Policy at the University of Sussex.
Professor Millstone reviewed all the research
the regulator had considered.
I produced and published a very detailed analysis
of each of the studies.
He came to the conclusion that there was a link
between how research was funded
and its findings.
Of the studies that seemed to show harm,
I think every single one of them
was funded by a noncommercial independent source.
Three quarters of those independent studies
found an association between aspartame and harm.
But Professor Millstone found research funded by makers
of aspartame came to a very different conclusion.
About 90% of the reassuring studies
were funded by large chemical corporations
that manufacture and sell aspartame.
So there's a pattern there that suggests the industry designs
and conducts studies that provide reassuring evidence.
I saw that as an expression of a very profound
and very dangerous bias.
Although ruled safe by many regulators,
there is a growing body of evidence
of potential links between the sweetener
and serious illness.
I am Dr Mathilde Touvier.
I am the head of the Nutritional Epidemiology Research Team
in the University Sorbonne Paris Nord.
Dr Touvier is leading one of the world's biggest studies
into food additives.
It's called NutriNet-Sante,
and for 14 years, Dr Touvier and her team have been publishing
regular reports based on the health and eating habits of 174,000 people.
We have 24-hour dietary records, during which they tell us
all the food, the beverages and so on that they are eating.
She's been looking at the possible impact of aspartame on human health.
Regarding artificial sweeteners and aspartame,
we did two major studies so far.
We first showed an association
between artificial sweeteners intake and notably aspartame
and increased risk of cancer.
Dr Touvier's findings don't prove aspartame causes cancer,
but they do suggest the more aspartame you consume,
the more likely you are to develop cancer, as well as other diseases.
We observed associations between artificial sweeteners
as a whole, and notably aspartame
with cardiovascular diseases
and, more specifically, cerebrovascular diseases,
which are mainly a stroke.
The World Health Organization has recently advised
that although there isn't conclusive evidence, it's concerned
long-term use of sweeteners like aspartame may increase the risk
of Type 2 diabetes, heart diseases and mortality.
A working group from the organisation's
International Agency for Research on Cancer
is meeting to examine aspartame's possible links to cancer
later this month.
The US-based Calorie Control Council, which represents
the global sweetener industry, says the French study should be reviewed
with extreme caution, as it's based on self-reported data,
which may be unreliable.
It also says it strongly disagrees
with the World Health Organization's conclusion
on aspartame's potential health impacts.
Aimee and Nancy are a week
into their ultra-processed food test.
For breakfast this morning, I had a quinoa porridge with berries on top,
and it's done a really good job of keeping me energised and full.
So it's the end of the day now,
and I've got a bit of a headache to be honest.
So, yeah, ending the day
still hungry, feeling a bit sort of rubbish
and, yeah, a bit of a headache.
Dr Berry is checking in with the twins
to discuss how they're getting on.
Lots of the things that you've just described about your headache
all point to the fact that you're probably having a dip
in blood sugar that happens about two to four hours
after people consume really heavily processed,
refined carbohydrates.
As well as being highly processed,
Aimee's food also contains chemical additives.
This is a mousse, made with fruit puree and only 73 calories.
Yeah, you'd think that would be a healthy option.
Oh, my goodness.
Pork gelatine, glucose, fructose syrup, acidity regulator,
citric acid, sodium hydroxide,
modified maize starch.
There's a term we use called the Health Halo,
where you have packaging that says high in fibre or low in sugar,
low in salt, plant-based. All of these kind of magic words
that make people think, "Wow, these are really healthy."
If anything ever says, "low", "reduced" or "no",
I'd always be a bit suspicious because how else have they therefore
made that food taste great?
Even many everyday foods like sliced bread can contain ingredients
no home cook would recognise.
Preservatives, palm oil,
caramelised sugar,
esters of mono and diglycerides and fatty acids.
Yeah, shocking. So many things I've never heard of.
And there's one ingredient the twins keep seeing again and again.
Emulsifiers again.
We've seen that a few times, haven't we? Yeah.
Emulsifiers are essentially a glue.
They stick components together
so that they have a good mouthfeel
and they don't fall apart in your mouth or on the plate.
So here we have carboxymethyl cellulose, CMC,
which is one of the commonest emulsifiers
used in the food industry.
And I'm just going to demonstrate
what happens when you just add water to it
and it very rapidly becomes
like a glue, a stodgy mass
that sticks everything together.
The food industry uses around 60 different emulsifiers,
often to enhance the appearance, texture and shelf life
of ultra-processed foods.
Some are naturally occurring,
others are chemically produced.
It's found in an incredible number of our foods
and they are potentially harmful.
Dr Touvier's study has also been looking at emulsifiers.
Panorama has been given exclusive access to her findings.
They're yet to be verified by peer review
but she says they're concerning.
We observed significant associations between emulsifier intake
and increased risk of cancer overall
and breast cancer, notably,
but also with cardiovascular diseases.
Ten years ago, a report funded
by the European Commission said
the consumption of chemical emulsifiers by UK adults
sometimes exceeded safe limits.
Some children were consuming even higher levels,
yet no action was taken by regulators.
In population, especially, children
are above the acceptable daily intakes,
it's really something we should be concerned about.
It's pretty horrific that so many children are affected.
It's even worse to realise that no-one has done anything about it.
At this party, the children are largely eating unprocessed food
but their parents are still worried.
If there is evidence that there's links to cancer,
that's really scary.
It begs the question, why is nobody actually bothering to look at that?
They're little children, they cannot be exposed to those things.
Upsetting and worrying, that's how it makes me feel.
I think it's outrageous, to be honest,
because you get them in for snacks,
you get them in to give to the children
when they come in from school and they're hungry.
We should be protecting our next generation, not exposing them
to harmful chemicals in their food.
In England, Wales and Northern Ireland,
food safety is regulated by the Food Standards Agency, the FSA.
It says it's about to launch a public consultation
on some emulsifiers.
There's growing concern the impact of ultra-processed food
on younger people is already being felt.
Hello. Hello, Dr Sadhra.
So how are you doing? I'm good, thank you. Yeah.
Hunida discovered she had Type 2 diabetes when she was just 31.
Not anyone as young as me has had diabetes in my family
so, when I was the first one in the young generation,
it was quite a shock, you know.
I am aware medically of the seriousness of diabetes
and what it can do to you long term.
She's one of 4.3 million people in the UK diagnosed with diabetes.
Rates among the under-40s are growing faster here
than anywhere in the world.
Diabetes levels at Dr Sadhra's Slough practice
are above the national average.
His patients face a range of risk factors.
In this practice, we've got 25% of adults
are either pre-diabetic or diabetic.
This is very worrying.
It is very concerning.
In the last 12 months, I've had
more than 100 new diabetics being diagnosed.
We have 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds
who have been diagnosed.
I'm finding patients who are younger with certain cancers.
That's how bad things are getting.
Dr Sadhra is clear on what he thinks the cause is.
The chronic disease escalation
is primarily related to food intake.
There's no question about it.
As well as the ingredients in our food,
many scientists are worried
about chemicals in some of the packaging it comes in,
particularly bisphenol A,
or BPA for short.
It's used in some ready meal plastic trays,
bottles and takeaway containers.
BPA gets into our food because it leaches out
from the plastic containers
and is increased if you increase the temperature of the plastic,
as can happen on a hot day,
or particularly if you put it in a microwave.
A review of more than 1,000 studies
suggested high levels of BPA
were linked to cancer and infertility,
with particular concerns about the impact on pregnancies.
It disrupts our hormonal pathways,
has been associated with increased rates of miscarriage,
stillbirth or malformations in the foetus.
The European regulator was so concerned that in April 2023
it updated its guidance,
dramatically reducing safe levels
for human consumption.
The UK's regulator, the Food Standards Agency,
gets advice on chemicals in food
from the Committee on Toxicity.
It took a different view.
It's chaired by Professor Alan Boobis,
seen here speaking at a scientific conference.
I'm a member of a number of science advisory boards.
Alan Boobis is an emeritus professor.
Recently, Professor Boobis
and some of his colleagues
have been arguing that the authorities ought not to be focusing
on the potential risks that chemicals might cause
to reproductive systems.
A series of reports, co-authored by Professor Boobis,
have downplayed the risks of BPA.
The most recent paper said that it was not plausible
that the amount of BPA we're currently exposed to
could cause us harm.
The paper also said the professor had no personal relationships
that might influence his conclusions.
But he didn't declare in that paper his relationship
with an organisation called
the International Life Sciences Institute, known as ILSI.
I'm Dr Sarah Steele.
I'm a senior research associate at the University of Cambridge
in Global Public Health.
The International Life Sciences Institute, which most people call
ILSI, was set up in 1978.
They have multiple branches around the world.
They're a truly global body.
VIDEO:By working with experts...
ILSI's glossy videos spell out its mission.
VIDEO:ILSI is a nonprofit, charitable organisation that works
for the health of the public.
Hundreds of scientists work with the institute worldwide.
It says it encourages collaborations
between academics and industry.
They kind of say that they produce science for the public good.
VIDEO:It's who we are and...
But ILSI gets much of its funding
from some of the world's largest food and chemical companies.
There's been a large number of multinational corporations
who funded ILSI.
Big food, environment, chemical,
those kinds of multinational corporations.
In 2012, the European Food Safety Authority was so worried
about potential conflicts of interest, it insisted anyone
associated with ILSI either had to resign from it
or leave the regulator.
Three years later, the World Health Organization
also distanced itself from ILSI.
They're promoting industry-favourable positions,
but not calling themselves the industry players.
And that for me is really concerning.
But here in the UK, the Food Standards Agency
allows Professor Boobis, an unpaid board member
and former vice president of ILSI Europe, to chair
the key advisory Committee on Toxicity.
I think it's entirely inappropriate that the chairman
of the Committee on Toxicity is so closely linked
to an organisation promoting the interests
of the chemical and food industries.
More than half the members of the Committee on Toxicity
have recent links to the food or chemicals industries.
And, last year, it disagreed with the European regulators' proposals
to cut the safe level of BPA,
criticising the regulator's approach to the evidence.
That means the safe level in the UK
is now 20,000 times higher than in Europe.
They have dismissed the arguments in favour of precaution
and are not endorsing a proposal
for cutting the permitted levels of BPA
in food-packaging materials.
And that represents a danger to consumers in this country.
Currently, the Food Standards Agency says BPA poses no risk to health,
but it says evaluation is ongoing.
Over the past ten years, the Committee on Toxicity
hasn't supported a single restriction
on the use of any chemical additive
in our food.
UK's Committee on Toxicity
is supposed to help
protect public health.
The judgments that it makes
rarely serve to protect public health
and more typically protect
the commercial interests
of chemical and food companies.
Professor Boobis says his advice
isn't slanted to favour industry.
And he's always been...
He says, he's always been open and transparent
about organisations he works with.
Recuses himself when there's a potential conflict of interest
and that his research is...
The Food Standards Agency says it has...
And it has no evidence bias has affected
the Committee on Toxicity's opinions or decisions made by the FSA.
It says it's vital it gets expert advice from people
across the food system.
ILSI says it...
And evaluates any conflicts of interest...
..for research.
Twins Aimee and Nancy have finished their two-week food test.
They've eaten diets, matched for calories, nutrients, sugar,
salt, fat and fibre.
The only difference has been the way Aimee's food has been made.
Are you interested to find out how you got on?
Yeah. We don't know anything, so we're excited to find out.
Aimee, you were on the ultra-processed food diet
that was exactly equivalent to the same diet that Nancy was on,
which was the wholefood unprocessed diet.
But your results were really quite different to your sister's.
They were far worse.
Your blood fat levels actually went up.
Your lipids, which are markers of heart disease,
they were increased.
Your blood sugar was noticeably worse.
You actually gained weight, nearly a kilogram,
and you actually lost weight.
It's a bit scary, isn't it?
After only two weeks, to see those sorts of results.
So just imagine what that would be over 20 years.
After two weeks on the ultra-processed diet,
any impact on Aimee's health will be fully reversible.
But the results are in line with a growing body of evidence
linking chemical additives and ultra-processing
to serious health consequences.
You're much more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes.
The changes we saw in your blood fats -
these blood lipid levels -
are associated with increased risk
of heart disease and strokes later in life.
So really it's all bad news
to be moving in that direction.
The Government has ordered a review of the evidence
on ultra-processed foods.
It will report in the summer.
We already have the most obese children in Europe.
That means more Type 2 diabetes,
more cancers, more heart disease,
more misery, more mental illness.
This really is a future time bomb.
It's a complete disaster.
And we're sleepwalking into it.
And it's extremely frightening.
There are now dozens of scientific studies warning of the dangers
of diets high in ultra-processed food.
In a decade that's seen a rapid rise in chronic illnesses,
is it time to take stronger action?