Ultra-Processed Foods Linked to 30% Higher Prostate Cancer Risk, Study Finds

Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) — industrially made products such as soft drinks, packaged cereals, snacks and processed meats, high in refined fats, sugars and additives — now supply nearly 60% of the calories U.S. adults eat and about 70% of those children eat. A new study from Florida Atlantic University's Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine suggests men who eat more UPFs may face a higher risk of prostate cancer, the most commonly diagnosed cancer in U.S. men.

The study, led by senior author Charles H. Hennekens and published in The American Journal of Medicine, analyzed nationally representative data from 17,024 U.S. men aged 18 and older in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) from 2003 to 2023. Researchers estimated each man's UPF intake from two 24-hour dietary recalls, classified using the NOVA food-classification system, and split participants into four groups ranging from under about 20% of daily calories from UPFs to more than 44%.

Compared with the lowest-intake group, men in the three higher UPF groups had a 29% greater risk of prostate cancer, and those in the two highest groups had a 30% greater risk. The association held after adjusting for age, race and ethnicity, smoking and poverty status, with risk ranging from 24% to 31%. The single highest intake group showed a possible 34% increase, but this was not statistically significant, possibly reflecting fewer cancer cases in that group.

Earlier research has linked higher UPF consumption to greater risks of obesity, metabolic disease, inflammatory markers, cardiovascular disease and premature death. Prostate cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer death in U.S. men after lung cancer; the American Cancer Society projects more than 333,000 U.S. diagnoses and 36,000 deaths from it in 2026.

Worldwide, nearly 1.5 million men were diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2022 and nearly 400,000 died from the disease that year, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer.