Researchers delving into WHY processed food is so bad for us develop intriguing new theory

Sure, potato chips, cookies, and hot dogs are chock-full of salt, sugar, fat, and calories. They can cause us to gain weight and put us at a higher risk of diseases such as diabetes and obesity. But why? What if there’s something unique about ultraprocessed foods that primes us to overeat and leads to bad health?

A new, intriguing hypothesis offers a potential answer. Increasingly, scientists think processed foods, with all their additives and sugar and lack of fiber, may be formulated in ways that disturb the gut microbiome, the trillions of diverse bacteria lining our intestines and colon. Those disturbances, in turn, may heighten the risk of chronic disease and encourage overeating.

The idea sheds new light on why ultraprocessed foods seem to be so bad for us. But to understand the hypothesis, we need to first look at what ultraprocessed foods are, and how they shape the community of bacteria in our gut that’s so intimately linked to our health.