Type of food and drink that ‘kills 370,000 people every year in Europe’

Ultra-processed foods, alcohol, tobacco, and fossil fuels are wreaking havoc across Europe, claiming 2.7 million lives annually, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has revealed.

Experts have blamed at “powerful industries” for driving ill health and premature deaths by meddling in government policies aimed at reducing cancer, heart disease, and diabetes rates. The WHO’s latest report is calling for “strict regulation to curb industry power” and urging governments to push through health policies that are often “challenged, delayed, weakened or stopped” by these industries.

According to WHO, “more than 7,400 people are dying every day” in its European region due to harmful products and practices “driven by commercial industry”. The report highlights that these commercial products are linked to 24 per cent of all deaths, with a staggering 51.4 per cent from cardiovascular diseases and 46.4 per cent from cancer. In total, tobacco, alcohol, ultra-processed food, and fuel industries contribute to or are directly responsible for 2.7 million deaths each year in Europe.

Globally, the situation is just as dire, with tobacco, ultra-processed foods, fossil fuels, and alcohol causing 19 million deaths annually, accounting for 34 per cent of all deaths worldwide. Breaking it down further, WHO attributes 1.15 million deaths per year in Europe to smoking, 426,857 to alcohol, 117,290 to diets high in processed meats, and 252,187 to diets high in salt.

These figures don’t even take into account deaths caused by obesity, high blood pressure, high blood sugar or high cholesterol level all of which are linked to unhealthy diets, according to the report. The study urged governments to be aware of the tactics used by industry such as blaming individuals, marketing, spreading disinformation, promotions on social media, lobbying and “subverting science” like funding research that promotes their goals, reports Bristol Live.

The WHO stated that the “primary interest of all major corporations is profit”, and having a large market share “often also translates into political power”. It continued: “Regardless of the product they sell, their (industry) interests do not align with either public health or the broader public interest. Any policy that could impact their sales and profits is therefore a threat, and they should play no role in the development of that policy.”

The report noted that, apart from rules around tobacco, “global efforts to regulate harmful marketing have, at best, been underwhelming”. It further added: “While legal measures regulating alcohol and unhealthy food marketing are in existence in several countries across the WHO European region and across the world, these are often narrow in scope, focused on specific media or settings, certain population groups or on specific marketing techniques, and therefore confer insufficient protection.”

Additionally, the World Health Organisation (WHO) mentioned that self-regulating industry norms have proven ineffective. Dr Hans Kluge, WHO’s regional director for Europe, stated: “Four industries kill at least 7,000 people in our region every day. The same large commercial entities block regulation that would protect the public from harmful products and marketing, and protect health policy from industry interference.

“Industry tactics include exploitation of vulnerable people through targeted marketing strategies, misleading consumers, and making false claims about the benefits of their products or their environmental credentials. These tactics threaten public health gains of the past century and prevent countries from reaching their health targets.”

Belgium’s deputy prime minister, Frank Vandenbroucke, who introduced the study, remarked: “For too long we have considered risk factors as being mostly linked to individual choices. We need to re-frame the problem as a systemic problem, where policy has to counter ‘hyper-consumption environments’, restrict marketing, and stop interference in policy making.”

In Britain, the proposed Tobacco and Vapes Bill which aimed to limit vape marketing to children and ban smoking in youngsters did not pass Parliament before it was dissolved ahead of the General Election. Plans to curb the promotion of fatty, sugary or salty foods have also been postponed until 2025.

Christopher Snowdon, head of lifestyle economics at the Institute of Economic Affairs, said: “This is far-left political agitation masquerading as public health research. “The authors are explicitly opposed to the market economy and trade liberalisation and conclude that the solution lies in ‘rethinking capitalism’.

“They claim that ‘consumers do not have capacity (time or resources) to make the ‘right’ choice’ and that the government should therefore make their choices for them using the full apparatus of the nanny state. “It is a sad indictment of the WHO that it has allowed this half-baked Marxism to be published in its name.”

Kendra Chow, policy and public affairs manager at the World Cancer Research Fund, who contributed to the report, hailed the “hard-hitting” study, stating that “public health must be prioritised over profits”. Rebeca Fernández, science director at FoodDrinkEurope, which represents the food and drink industry, criticised: “To connect the consumption of processed foods with the tobacco and fossil fuel industries is irresponsible and outrageously misleading. We all need food and we all need processed food.

“Unfortunately the WHO report does not acknowledge that there is no agreed definition of what ultra-processed foods are, let alone their impact on health, which is why last year the UK Government’s own independent Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition concluded the evidence so far to be insufficient to use UPF terminology to define public health guidelines.

“Instead, well-established food nutrition science the world over tells us that the best way to tackle obesity and non-communicable diseases is to focus on the nutrition content of a food and how often you consume it, in conjunction with what type of lifestyle you lead. “”That’s why food and drink makers here in Europe are playing their part by reformulating products to cut salt, fat, and sugars whilst boosting fibre and micronutrients.”