Study finds tobacco giants brought addiction engineering to ultra-processed foods

Tobacco companies' influence may have extended beyond cigarettes. Research has indicated that addiction-centered methods honed in that industry also made their way into the U.S. food business.

In practical terms, that suggests some familiar snacks and meals may have been developed with techniques originally designed to keep smokers dependent, according to NPR.

What's happening?

A special section published June 3 in the American Journal of Public Health argued that ultra-processed foods should be viewed as the next major public health fight after tobacco.

The researchers said these products make up a substantial portion of the American diet and are a major factor in poor health.

After reviewing tobacco industry archives, University of California, San Francisco professor Laura Schmidt found that when cigarette companies acquired major food brands in the 1980s, they carried over the same approaches they had used in product development and marketing.

During that period, Philip Morris owned Kraft General Foods, while RJ Reynolds controlled Nabisco.

"The very technologies that were used to figure out how to optimize the addictive properties of nicotine using added sugar and artificial flavorings — that core technology was transferred from the tobacco industry to ultra-processed food development," Schmidt said.

The researchers said those tobacco-style methods also appeared in food marketing, including larger portion sizes and "light" or reduced products meant to keep health-conscious consumers from giving up the products entirely.

Why does it matter?

According to NPR, researchers described many ultra-processed foods as hyper-palatable because they combine fat, sugar, salt, and starches in ways that strongly activate the brain's reward pathways.

Nicholas Chartres, an associate editor of the journal and one of the paper's authors, said the new work "adds to a growing body of evidence that these [food] products are associated with chronic disease, that they have addictive characteristics, and that they were also intentionally developed by tobacco and food companies."

One of the papers in the journal section followed more than 5,000 older adults for 10 years and found a possible association between greater ultra-processed food consumption and higher odds of cognitive impairment and dementia.

Meanwhile, companies such as Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Danone, responsible for many ultra-processed products, are also among the world's largest plastic polluters.

What's being done?

The researchers said several of the strategies most successfully used against tobacco could also be applied here, including regulation, lawsuits, and stronger consumer protections.

A survey included in the journal section found that a majority of the 2,000 adults polled — across party lines — supported government regulation of ultra-processed foods.

Some states have already started taking preliminary action, including moves to restrict or ban certain synthetic food dyes. Legal experts also said state attorneys general may eventually bring tobacco-style cases against food companies over public health damage, NPR reported.

Packaged-food industry groups said their products are safe and affordable, but the researchers behind the papers argued that convenience does not excuse decades of engineering aimed at increasing consumption.

"It feels like we've reached a tipping point between the strength of the science, public support, and then also political will," Lindsey Smith Taillie, one of the study's co-authors, said, per NPR.

Public health lawyer Jennifer Pomeranz added: "The last time there was this kind of universal upheaval about the safety of our food supply was the 1906 [Pure] Food and Drug Act."

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