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• Exploratory prospective cohort study Date verified

  Markers of ultra-processed food and incident arterial hypertension in the UK Biobank

  Rather than treating ultra-processed food as one category, German researchers broke it into nine groups of specific additives and followed 101,560 UK Biobank participants for a median of ten and a half years. Only four of the nine additive categories tracked with new hypertension. Five showed no association at all, and three specific additives ran the other way.

  European Heart Journal · Krost et al. · Justus-Liebig University of Giessen · 3 August 2026 · PMID 42545878

  ultra-processed-foodfood-additivessweetenerscardiovascularepidemiology
• In vitro screen plus narrative review The digest lists 16 and 22 July 2026 for the two papers; dates taken from the digest and not verified at source.

  Two new looks at sweeteners and the gut, and neither delivers a clean verdict

  An in vitro screen found around 75% of 39 sweeteners altered the growth of at least one of 25 gut bacterial species. A separate narrative review concluded the evidence supports neither a uniformly harmful nor a uniformly safe verdict on artificial sweeteners.

  Molecular Systems Biology (screen); · Xin et al. · 16 July 2026 · PMID 42514471

  sweetenersmicrobiomegut-healthgeneral-nutrition