According to a recent study, the consumption of ultra-processed food (UPF) is linked to a group of cancers, notably ovarian. But what is ultra-processed food? As per a Harvard health blog, corn chips, apple pie, french fries, carrot cake, and cookies are all examples of UPF. And how profound is the impact? In other words, how big is a 20% increase, as the study claims, in the case of ovarian cancer?
Ovarian cancer
The global incidence of yearly fresh cases of ovarian cancer is 6.6 per 100,000 people in 2020. In the US, it’s 19,880 in 2023, which is about 10 per 100,000 women (age-adjusted).
The red circles are incident rates of new cases, and the blue triangles are deaths. Interestingly, the graph shows a steady decline over the years.
