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- Author, André Biernath
- Role, Da BBC News Brasil em Londres
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Tempo de leitura: 29 min
na visão do epidemiologista brasileiro Carlos Augusto Monteiro, os alimentos ultraprocessados precisam ser taxados e regulamentados, num modelo muito parecido ao que aconteceu com o cigarro ao longo das últimas décadas.
Para dar suporte a esse ponto de vista, ele traz na bagagem décadas de pesquisa sobre alimentação na Universidade de São Paulo (USP), mais especificamente no Núcleo de Pesquisas Epidemiológicas em Nutrição e Saúde (Nupens) da Faculdade de Saúde Pública.
Ele é o líder do grupo de estudos que cunhou o termo “alimentos ultrapro
Monteiro esteve em Londres, no Reino Unido, para o lançamento da edição do The Lancet – e aproveitou a ocasião para dar uma entrevista à BBC News Brasil, onde explicou as evidências sobre os problemas dos ultraprocessados e respondeu as críticas feitas sobre esse conceito.
Confira os principais trechos da entrevista a seguir.
BBC News Brasil – Como o senhor teve a ideia de criar o conceito de alimentos ultraprocessados?
Carlos Augusto Monteiro – Isso já tem quase 20 anos e não é uma criação minha, mas, sim, de um grupo de pesquisas. As novas ideias nunca vêm de uma só pessoa.Nesse caso, o conceito veio de um grupo que temos na Universidade de São Paulo (USP). E nosso interesse sempre foi estudar alimentação e saúde.
Antes,estudávamos muito a desnutrição na infância,porque esse era o grande problema no Brasil. Mas depois estudamos mais e mais as doenças crônicas, particularmente a obesidade, que foi uma coisa que explodiu em todo o mundo. E o nosso interesse era entender as razões, as causas disso. Porque sem entender as causas você não tem muito como criar políticas públicas.
No processo de entender esse fenômeno, nós começamos a estudar como a alimentação dos brasileiros variou em paralelo àquele aumento da obesidade. Queríamos entender o que tinha mudado na alimentação do
Crédito, Getty Images
Essas formulações alimentícias são desenhadas para enganar a nossa regulação do apetite.ou seja,eles não te dão saciedade. Você quer comer sempre mais e mais. Isso é muito diferente de um café com açúcar, que você não vai querer tomar quinze xícaras de uma vez. Temos então a questão da gordura e do açúcar juntos nessa família de alimentos, somado aos aditivos, que tornam esses produtos explosivamente deliciosos. Eles têm palatabilidade artificial,criada com muita tecnologia,com ingredientes que só as grandes corporações possuem acesso.
E esse alimento está sendo consumido no lugar do que? No lugar da alimentação tradicional brasileira. Do arroz, do feijão, do óleo, do açúcar, do sal… Porque esses produtos ultraprocessados já vêm com gordura, açúcar e sal. E eles são fabricados para serem consumidos em excesso.
Mas por que a indústria faz isso? Afinal,ela não quer que as pessoas fiquem doentes. Ela teria prejuízos com isso. Mas esse é um modelo de negócios. A indústria criou esse modelo de produção de alimentos que está em voga há 20 ou 30 anos no Brasil, 50 ou 60 anos na Inglaterra e nos Estados Unidos.Ela descobriu que podia maximizar os lucros tremendamente ao usar ingredientes muito baratos, de longa duração, a partir de coisas que não estragam.
E ela conseguiria juntar esses ingredientes de baixo custo, como a gordura, o sal, isolado proteico, a gordura hidrogenada…
Crédito,Getty Images
BBC News Brasil – Quando o senhor publicou os primeiros trabalhos sobre os ultraprocessados,qual foi a reação inicial? Foram feitas muitas críticas?
Monteiro – A gente começou a discutir esse assunto por volta de 2005,quando analisamos séries históricas de pesquisa sobre alimentação no Brasil. em 2009, começamos a amadurecer essa ideia do conceito de ultraprocessados e propusemos a hipótese de que ele poderia ser uma explicação para a epidemia de obesidade no Brasil e talvez no mundo inteiro.
Esse primeiro comentário que nós publicamos não teve muita repercussão, porque normalmente as novas ideias, os novos paradigmas, surgem nas universidades americanas e inglesas. É nesses lugares onde a ciência da nutrição acontece. Quando você tem uma nova ideia que surge numa universidade do sul global, do Hemisfério Sul, ninguém dá muita bola. Você tem dificuldades de publicar numa revista de alto impacto.
A repercussão inicial foi muito pequena. Mas nós continuamos e começamos a testar as hipóteses que esta
Researchers at the National Institutes of Health in the United States, the largest health research structure in the world, published an article in 2019 showing that people who consume an ultra-processed diet ingest 500 more calories compared to a period when they have a diet without these products. and 500 calories is a huge amount, representing a quarter of the calorie needs we have during a day. in other words, it’s like increasing your calorie intake by 25%. Consequently, in just two weeks, these people gained one kilogram of weight. And when they returned to the diet without ultra-processed foods, they lost that kilogram.
This was a turning point, a change. As then all the universities, from Harvard to Cambridge and Oxford, began to re-evaluate their cohort studies, some made decades ago. And each of these proofs demonstrated the correctness of our initial hypothesis.
In this series of articles from the Lancet magazine, which has just been released, we made a systematic review of all the evidence, of all the cohort studies that have been done in the world on the relationship between the consumption of ultra-processed foods and some chronic disease. We found 104 studies. Of these, 92 show a relationship between ultra-processed foods and one or more chronic diseases. This is overwhelming. The list includes problems that affect the cardiovascular system, the respiratory system, mental illnesses, fatty liver, chronic kidney failure…
At frist, we had an idea that ultra-processed foods would be very crucial for the increase in obesity. But it wasn’t clear that they could have such a broader effect. And,by getting to know these foods better,we understood that they are very diffrent from traditional foods.Simply put, you don’t consume the whole food and, on top of that, you ingest dozens of additives, which are chemical substances foreign to our organism. Humans are not physiologically adapted to this change.
A significant factor here is the overwhelming data. Studies on food and nutrition often show contradictions. So,such as,you have studies showing that eggs are bad for cardiovascular disease. Others say the effect is neutral, or even that they are good.
And this is explained because diet influences health not only because of one ingredient, but rather because of a group of foods.This is what we call a dietary pattern.
And what is the advantage of the concept of ultra-processed foods? It’s that we don’t think about biscuits, soda, ice cream, frozen food, instant noodles separately. We think about the person who stopped making food in the kitchen, prepared by a human being from real foods, and started consuming a diet entirely made in a factory. It’s a dietary pattern.
Unlike these studies on nutrients or individual foods, our theory is that the ultra-processed diet, this exchange, this substitution of traditional foods, is the problem.
Only regarding studies on ultra-processed foods and chronic diseases, today we have more than a thousand works published in the world. And that in a period of not much more than five years. And all with consistency in the results.
The second point is that this concept of ultra-processed foods is not simple at all, as it requires understanding the food system and the business model. But ordinary people understand that this idea that if you stop consuming foods and start ingesting a simulacrum of foods, something is wrong.
The person sees that a common pasta has wheat flour and water as ingredients. Then in the list of ingredients of instant noodles
nutrient, has another disease. That’s how the science of nutrition arose and made several discoveries. And indeed, sometimes the lack of a nutrient causes problems. Lack of vitamin C leads to scurvy. Lack of vitamin A causes blindness.
But this paradigm was transported to chronic diseases.Do I have hypertension? Excess salt. do I have cardiovascular disease? It’s saturated fat. Do I have diabetes? It’s sugar. That’s the traditional paradigm.
And what do people do? They take ultra-processed foods, which are indeed heterogeneous from the point of view of the nutrient profile. Because the group of ultra-processed foods includes soda, instant noodles, flavored yogurt… So, really, if you take these products, the nutrient profile varies quite a bit. Soda is water,sugar and additives. Strawberry-flavored yogurt doesn’t have strawberries, but it has milk protein, it has something from the milk there, it has vitamin A, it has calcium…
And then the critical reaction is: “How do you put these products in the same group? That doesn’t make sense.” It doesn’t make sense for the old paradigm. but it makes sense for the ultra-processing paradigm.
What is the formal definition of ultra-processed foods? They are formulations of processed food substances and additives.So you process twice: first you process to obtain modified starch; then,you process to have modified starch with other things. And there is very little, if anything, of the whole food.
So, when it is indeed stated that ultra-processed foods are not all bad for health, this is a potential truth. Because they have a varied nutrient profile. And, yes, they have a very different potential for harm among themselves.
But what is the purpose of talking about ultra-processed foods? It is the fact that e
And the effect on health is cumulative. it happens a little when you swap water for soda. That’s terrible. Then you swap fruit yogurt for flavored yogurt. Then you replace the baguette with ultra-processed sliced bread. And regular pasta with sauce for instant noodles.
Each of these substitutions creates a problem, adds a problem. And you have a cumulative effect of that.So it doesn’t make sense to criticize this concept as it doesn’t talk about a homogeneous group from a nutritional point of view.
our answer is: yes, so what?
Credit,
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Photo caption,
Brazilian epidemiologist argues that ultra-processed foods should be regulated with a model similar to that used for cigarettes
BBC News Brasil –
So, the brain analyzes that the person is eating and, after a while, will start to think about how many calories have entered the body.
However, when you consume a highly digestible and rapidly absorbed product, the body doesn’t have time to do that. When it identifies what was eaten, it’s already too late and you’ve eaten too much.
This is just the explanation for obesity. But we have the association of ultra-processed foods with other diseases. Crohn’s disease, which is complex, where people suffer a lot with inflammation in the small intestine. It is very clearly associated with an ultra-processed diet.Why? We don’t know.
There are some hypotheses. These emulsifiers I mentioned, they are a kind of detergent. They keep that mixture that forms the food together. But this emulsifier will reach your intestine. And there, it will remove a protective layer from the intestinal cells that is essential to regulating what goes in and what doesn’t, as happens with the absorption of nutrients… And that also determines what kind of bacteria you will have in your intestine.so there is a suspicion that the emulsifier will have this effect, which ends up being related to Crohn’s disease.
But the point is this: there are many diseases, there are many types of ultra-processed foods.And knowing exactly everything is complicated. You take the Mediterranean Diet, for example. Does it protect against various chronic diseases? We certainly know the perfect mechanism of why it protects against this or that type of cancer? We don’t know. Science is learning, but there is a limit, and it is not possible to study everything at the same time.
The point is that we don’t know all the mechanisms.And even without knowing all these mechanisms, the totality of the evidence shows that these foods are not healthy, they are not good, and we need to stop consuming them.
They’ve already done this. This is the case with Chile, for example, which has a policy of regulating front-of-package food labeling with warnings, as well as higher taxes and a ban on marketing aimed at children.
These things need to happen simultaneously occurring. And that’s all the big corporations, the ultra-processed food industry, don’t want. So,what does it do? it uses strategies to postpone and avoid these regulatory policies as much as possible. And they do this in a number of different ways. One of them is to fund research groups, to sow doubt. This is an important issue.
Sometimes people ask me how the idea of ultra-processed foods emerged in brazil, and not in England or the United States. There are several explanations for this, and one of them is that the increase in consumption was much more acute, so we noticed it more easily.
Another explanation is that the vast majority of nutrition and food science departments at universities are funded by the food industry. And not the food industry in general, but the ultra-processed food industry. Because this industry needs these food scientists to make these mixtures and deal with sophisticated technical processes that are behind ultra-processed foods. And,in the case of nutritionists,they offer support for research,and not necessarily in what the industry is interested in.
Look, once one of these large corporations went to USP and they wanted to make a research funding. The rector called me to participate in the meeting and there was the CEO of the company for Latin America. He said the following: “Look, we have a reserve here of a few million reais and we want to apply it to USP.” The rector asked: “But what exactly do you want to apply it to?” And the CEO replied: “Whatever you want.”
In other words, they
as people become more aware of the harms of ultra-processed foods and begin to understand that they are not healthy, the companies that manufacture these products become more like the tobacco industry. And then it becomes easier to say that they cannot participate in decisions.
Credit,getty Images
BBC news Brasil – Have you ever felt pressured or persecuted by the public positions you take?
Monteiro – I was just now,for example,at an international nutrition congress in Paris,France,and I didn’t see any advertising for ultra-processed foods. We’ve already made that progress.
But what happens these days? These industries, and the associations that represent the industry, propose symposia within the congresses. In Paris, we presented our articles that came out in The Lancet. and it was a huge success, with more than 500 people in the room. But you know what?
Hope, how will people change their consumption patterns? This paradigm shifts the responsibility from those who are eating to those who are producing this food.
Of course, we need to continue educating people, talking about how ultra-processed foods are not good for health. But we need to control the supply. Otherwise, it will never work.
You touched on another point: why do people consume ultra-processed foods? Nobody wants to get sick. but there’s the issue of convenience. But are they really more practical? An example we have here is infant formulas, which are ultra-processed. When mothers were informed that there was no way to compare infant formulas to breastfeeding, that breast milk has no substitute and is fundamental for learning and intellectual development of children, many of them returned to breastfeeding. did they do this as breastfeeding is simple and convenient? Not necessarily. But they made a choice.
So, informing people is something very critically important. Still on the subject of convenience, okay, we have some recipes that indeed take a long time. But then you make it on Sunday, when you have some time. Now,making pasta with tomato sauce,such as,doesn’t take that long. You heat the water, throw in the pasta, add the sauce and it’s ready. With seasoning and no additives.
if you take instant noodles, you will really be able to prepare them in a shorter time. But it’s a small difference, ten minutes for instant noodles and 30 minutes for pasta with tomato sauce. But the advertising of ultra-processed foods exaggerates and amplifies this issue so much that it truly seems that you do everything much faster with their products.
But there is there’s no doubt whatsoever that price and convenience are points that make a person choose between one food or another. And public policies need to look at that. And even understand the family arrangements.
Monteiro – Em parte,com certeza. eu lembro que, em São Paulo, tínhamos até 70% da população que fumava quando eu era garoto, estava com meus 15 a 20 anos. Hoje, essa taxa está abaixo de 10%. E o cigarro é complicado,porque é viciante,envolve dependência química. Como é que se conseguiu essa redução? Não foi só avisando as pessoas para que elas deixassem de fumar para não ter câncer de pulmão. Houve aumento do imposto, advertência nos rótulos, tudo. Foi uma coisa gradual, claro. Mas as políticas públicas começaram a informar melhor as pessoas. Em seguida,foram colocadas sobretaxas. Depois, os alertas dos riscos no consumo daquele produto, a proibição da propaganda, e assim por diante.
A semelhança com os ultraprocessados é muito grande e eu acho que precisa ser feito algo parecido ao que aconteceu com os cigarros. A indústria do tabaco tem um modelo de negócios fantástico, que compra as folhas de fumo por um preço muito baixo e transforma aquilo num produto com uma margem de lucro dez vezes maior. O que você tem que fazer então? Aumentar dez vezes o valor do imposto. É isso que os países estão fazendo e que levou à redução nas taxas de tabagismo.
A grande diferença quando falamos de ultraprocessados é que precisamos pensar nos substitutos. Porque, no caso do cigarro, não há necessidade de trocá-lo por outra coisa. No caso dos alimentos, todo mundo precisa comer, todo mundo precisa de calorias para ficar vivo. Então se você deixar de comer uma coisa, precisa passar a consumir outra. E isso torna a questão mais fácil e mais difícil ao mesmo tempo.
É mais difícil porque você precisa pensar em alternativas no mercado. Mas é mais fácil porque existem caminhos para fazer isso, como apoiar a agricultura familiar, garantir o abastecimento e fazer estoques estratégicos de alimentos-chave.
E existe toda uma indústri
BBC News Brasil – Uma outra crítica comum ao conceito de ultraprocessados é a de que esse é um termo baseado em ideologias políticas. O senhor concorda com isso?
Monteiro – Sim,tem uma ideologia da saúde pública. Eu sou médico de formação, mas rapidamente entrei na área da saúde pública porque achei ali um espaço onde meu trabalho poderia ser revertido em benefício de muitas pessoas, principalmente das menos privilegiadas, as mais pobres, as que sofriam mais. Esse tema dos ultraprocessados surgiu no meu grupo de pesquisas e hoje mobiliza o mundo inteiro, porque aquelas pessoas reunidas têm um compromisso com a justiça social. Então,nesse sentido,temos valores.
Se eu tivesse como valor a ideia de que as pessoas devem competir entre si e só as mais fortes vão sobreviver,numa espécie de capitalismo selvagem,eu talvez não estivesse preocupado com a questão dos ultraprocessados. Eu já ouvi algumas pessoas falando para deixar as pessoas comerem ultraprocessados, porque elas vão morrer e esse consumo eventualmente será reduzido. quase como se fosse uma seleção natural.
Eu acredito que o cientista precisa ser rigoroso em relação às evidências, mas também precisa ter valores. Ele não pode simplesmente criar a bomba atômica e dizer que não é problema dele o que vai ser feito com ela.
Logo nos primeiros anos após a criação do conceito de ultraprocessados, alguns representantes da indústria da alimentação começaram a dizer coisas do tipo: “tem um pediatra aí que está propondo essa coisa de ultraprocessados, e tal.” eu não sou pediatra, embora tenha feito residência em Pediatria lá atrás. Mas essa era uma forma de me desqualificar. Essas jogadas acontecem quando você não tem argumentos. Daí você parte para essas tentativas de desqualificação.
BBC News Brasil – Diante da repercussão
Analysis of Provided Text & Research Plan
The provided text is an excerpt from an interview with a scientist discussing their research, the context of scientific research in Brazil versus the “North Global,” and the influence of industry funding on research. The core argument revolves around the advantages of a publicly funded, self-reliant research environment, especially in the context of nutrition and ultra-processed foods.
Important Considerations:
* Untrusted Source: The source is explicitly flagged as untrusted. This necessitates rigorous verification of all claims.
* No Rewriting/Paraphrasing: Strict adherence to this instruction is paramount. The goal is to verify information, not reproduce the source’s presentation.
* Focus on Factual Claims: The research will concentrate on verifying statements about institutions,research findings,and the state of scientific funding.
Phase 1: Adversarial Research, Freshness & Breaking-News Check
Here’s a breakdown of the factual claims requiring verification, along with a plan for research:
- Cervical Cancer & HPV Research: The claim that the scientist’s work contributed to understanding cervical cancer but the Nobel Prize went to someone who used that information to understand HPV’s role in tumor development.
* Verification: Research the history of Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine related to HPV and cervical cancer. Identify key researchers and their contributions. Specifically, investigate Harald zur Hausen, who won the 2008 Nobel Prize for discovering that HPV causes cervical cancer. Determine the scientist’s specific contributions and how they relate to zur Hausen’s work.
* Sources: NobelPrize.org, PubMed, reputable medical journals (e.g., The Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine).
- Brazilian Research Disadvantages: The assertion that Brazilian universities have fewer resources and equipment compared to those in the “North Global.”
* Verification: Compare research funding levels, infrastructure, and access to equipment in Brazilian universities (specifically USP) with leading universities in the US, Canada, and Europe. Look for data on R&D spending as a percentage of GDP.
* Sources: UNESCO Institute for Statistics,World Bank data,reports from Brazilian Ministry of Education,university rankings (QS World University Rankings,Times Higher Education World University Rankings – focusing on research metrics).
- USP Nutrition Department Independence: The claim that the scientist’s nutrition department is one of the few globally without industry funding.
* Verification: This is a strong claim requiring substantial evidence. Investigate the funding sources of nutrition departments at major universities worldwide. Specifically, examine USP’s nutrition department’s financial reports and publicly available information about its funding.
* Sources: USP’s official website (financial reports, department information), university financial disclosures (if available), investigative journalism reports on industry funding of research.
- USP as a Public, Free University: The statement that USP is a public, free university that pays the scientist’s salary without private funding.
* Verification: Confirm USP’s status as a public university and its tuition policy. Verify that the scientist is a salaried employee of USP and that the salary is funded through public sources.
* Sources: USP’s official website, Brazilian government education websites.
- Contrast in Approaches to Ultra-Processed Foods: The comparison between Brazilian and American scientists’ perspectives on ultra-processed foods – Brazilian scientists believing change is absolutely possible, while American colleagues feel it’s “unachievable” to change the industry and focus on making them “better.”
* verification: This is a qualitative claim and harder to verify directly. Look for published research and statements from nutrition scientists in both Brazil and the US regarding ultra-processed foods. Identify any documented differences in approaches or perspectives. This will likely involve searching for opinion pieces, interviews, and research papers.
* Sources: PubMed, Google Scholar, interviews with nutrition scientists, reports from public health organizations.
- Current Status (as of 2026/01/16 10:55:41): A breaking news check will be performed on all entities and topics to identify any recent developments.
Phase 2: Entity-Based GEO
- Primary Entity: The Scientist (Name not provided in the excerpt – needs to be determined through further research based on context clues).
- Related Entities:
* University of São Paulo (USP): A key institution.* Harald zur Hausen: Nobel Laureate whose work is referenced.
* HPV (Human Papillomavirus): The virus linked to cervical cancer.
* Cervical Cancer: The disease being researched.
* **Ultra-
