We Ingest Over 4 Kilograms Of Supplements Per Year

Food additives were introduced in the early 20th century to meet the demands of food manufacturers who wanted their products to last longer, look better or taste better.

According to the definition of the European Food Authority (EFSA), "food additives are substances intentionally added to food to perform certain technological functions, for example to color, sweeten or help preserve the food". In the European Union, all food additives are identified with an E followed by a number. Food additives must be included in the list of ingredients of the foods in which they are used.  The most common additives that appear on food labels are antioxidants (to prevent spoilage caused by oxidation), colors, emulsifiers, stabilizers, gelling and thickening agents, preservatives, and sweeteners.

The history of supplements

Food additives were introduced in the early 20th century to meet the demands of food manufacturers who wanted their products to last longer, look better or taste better.  As Deborah Bloom, author of  The Poison Squad , recalls  , chalk was added to bread, borax to various foods, strychnine to make beer more bitter, and formaldehyde to milk and meat to preserve them!  Consumers, writes Deborah Blum, believe that food comes to them directly from farms, pure and unadulterated.  Unfortunately, this was not true at all.

In 1903, a chemist named Harvey Wiley, commissioned by the United States Department of Agriculture, published the first report on the health effects of supplements commonly used in North America and Europe.  For this purpose, he had volunteers swallow these substances.  They got very sick.  Wiley concludes that borax, boric acid, salicylic acid, benzoic acid, benzoates, formaldehyde, sulfuric acid, and sulfates are dangerous when added to foods.  The US food industry tried to smear Wiley before paying parliamentarians to legalize the substances in question, but to no avail.  Food regains its naturalness, but only for a while.

Additives meet the needs of producers, not consumers

"The use of additives," explains Prof. Jean-François Narbon, toxicologist,  became widespread again after the war, along with the ever-increasing processing of food.  »

This is the beginning of the management of ultra-processed foods (UTF).  The deconstruction (cracking) and reassembly of these TUEs results in a degradation of textures and flavors that must be compensated for.  We also look for the longest possible storage and, of course, minimum costs: additives allow to reduce the quantities of  more expensive  natural ingredients.

"  In this way, a whole chemical arsenal belonging to different chemical families is made available to the food industry  ," says Professor Narbonne,  whether it is colourants, preservatives, antioxidants, texture, anti-caking agents, flavor enhancers or sweeteners.  »

Today, the presence of additives in a product signals that it is an  ultra-processed food  , the consumption of which is associated with a higher risk of chronic diseases.

How many supplements do we ingest?

Here are the important takeaways from this new study:

• The ingest an average of 155.5 g of supplements per kilogram of body weight per day,  or for the average adult (72.4 kg), 4.1 kg/year  as calculated by UFC-Que Choisir.
• The 5% of people who consume the most consume nearly 25 g per kg of body weight or 9 kg per year .

However, the authors caution that these data underestimate the actual consumption of supplements by the French, given that the NutriNet-Santé cohort rather recruited people concerned about their health and the quality of their diet.

In fact, data previously published by EFSA suggest that for modified starches, i.e. family of supplements consumed the most by study participants (91.48%), consumption would average 112 mg per kg of body weight, while in the NutriNet-Santé cohort it amounted to 24 mg per kg of body weight.

These studies raise other questions.  For example:  Is the acceptable daily intake (ADI) sufficient to determine the safety of the substance used, given the amount and variety of additives consumed daily by consumers of ultra-processed foods?  Probably not.  Indeed, according to Dr. Anne-Laure Denans, LaNutrition team author of the  New Guide to Additives, “a  cocktail effect occurs when related chemicals produce a toxic effect on the body at doses where each would normally be taken harmlessly individually  ."

PREMIUM CHAPTERS ▼

Allowed add-ons list: 90 problematic add-ons (PREMIUM)

For the New Guide to Supplements, a team of scientific journalists from LaNutrition.fr, which is already at the heart of Good Choice in the supermarket, collected over several months the scientific and toxicological data on supplements under the guidance of Dr. Anne-Laure Denance. Unprecedented work on synthesis and popularization, which made it possible to classify these substances into 4 categories.

The book visually classifies 338 supplements into four categories based on the latest scientific research:

• Reds : those best avoided altogether;
• Orange : those recommended to be avoided under certain conditions;
• Grey: those for which information is missing;
• Green: those with no known risks.

Results: 90 add-ons "cause problems". While their occasional low-dose consumption is unlikely to be risky, the editors advise against regular consumption or high-dose consumption. They could then lead to problems that have been identified in experimental studies (in vitro, in animals) or in humans, such as: behavioral disorders; cell damage; change in gut flora, even cancer and cardiovascular disease.

To read: The list of additives allowed in Europe, classified according to their level of risk (Subscriber)

Colorants, phosphates, emulsifiers, nitrites, preservatives: they are everywhere! (PREMIUM)

Among the questionable substances:

• Colorants: widely present in confectionery and baby food, some are thought to promote hyperactivity and behavioral disorders.
• Phosphates: they have invaded the shelves, from ready meals to cheeses. Based on epidemiological studies, they are suspected to favor cardiovascular disease, kidney disease and cancer.
• Emulsifiers: those substances found in ready meals, industrial bread, etc. it can disrupt the intestinal flora, whose regulatory role in immunity and more generally in physical and mental health is known.
• Nitrites: these preservatives present in most cooked meats lead to carcinogenic nitrosamines. They could explain the increased risk of digestive cancer when you regularly eat delicacies.

What are the effects of dietary supplements on health? (PREMIUM)

Experimental studies on the most consumed nutritional supplements show that some of them pose a potential health risk.

• One study tested 20 emulsifiers in an ex vivo human microbiota model. Several, including carboxymethylcellulose, polysorbate 80, carrageenans, guar/xanthan gum, lecithins are able to alter the gut microbiota in ways that may promote inflammation. An experimental study in humans also suggests a link between lecithin as a supplement and Crohn's disease.
• Lecithin added to food is also, under certain conditions, converted by bacteria in the gut into TMAO, a substance associated with an increased risk of atherosclerosis and heart attack. 
• Carrageenans are associated with fasting hyperglycemia and glucose intolerance.
• Likewise, the consumption of nitrite salts leads under certain conditions to the synthesis of nitrosamines, which are potentially carcinogenic. The topic is debated among scientists, but prospective studies have found an association between canned foods with nitrates and nitrites (including deli meats) and all-cause mortality, as well as mortality from certain cancers of the digestive system.
• Phosphates are widely present in ultra-processed foods and may pose cardiovascular and kidney risks.
• Sulfates can alter the gut microbiota.
• The effects of sweeteners such as acesulfame potassium, sucralose, and aspartame on cardiometabolic health and obesity in humans are controversial, but they appear capable of altering the composition of gut flora.
• Caramel may contain 4-methylimidazole (4-MEI), a potential human carcinogen according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).
• Monosodium glutamate can be toxic and cause severe reactions. Its consumption was associated with weight gain in a prospective cohort.
• Carboxymethylcellulose can alter the composition of the microbiota and promote intestinal inflammation and metabolic syndrome.
• The preservative EDTA (ethylenediamine-tetraacetate) can experimentally stimulate inflammation and the initiation of tumor phenomena.