From biscuits with tea to chanachur at the office, instant noodles for a quick meal and packaged snacks for children, ultra-processed foods have become a routine part of diets in Bangladesh.
Now, a large US study has added to growing evidence that higher consumption of such foods is associated with a greater risk of death from any cause, even after researchers accounted for the overall nutritional quality of people’s diets.
The study, published in the July 2026 issue of the American Journal of Public Health, analysed data from nearly 48,000 US adults who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 1999 and 2018.
Researchers found that for every 10 percentage-point increase in the share of a person’s total energy intake coming from ultra-processed foods (UPFs), the risk of all-cause mortality was 4% higher.
During an average 20.8-year follow-up, 7,481 deaths were recorded among the 47,918 participants included in the mortality analysis.
What does that mean for Bangladesh?
The finding cannot be directly applied to Bangladesh’s mortality risk.
The research was based on a US population and was observational, meaning it identified an association rather than proving that ultra-processed foods directly caused the deaths.
But the types of foods examined are increasingly familiar to Bangladeshi consumers.
A recent analysis of the South Asia Biobank found that around 75% of participants in Bangladesh reported consuming at least one UPF in the previous 24 hours. Among consumers, UPFs accounted for a median 13% of total energy intake, with biscuits among the most common sources.
Another Bangladesh study involving 974 people found that 97% had consumed at least one processed or ultra-processed food in the previous week.
Among the most frequently consumed categories were sweet biscuits, chanachur and instant noodles, reported by 60.5%, 53.1% and 52.3% of respondents respectively.
That makes the issue particularly relevant to everyday Bangladeshi diets.
A cup of tea with packaged biscuits may seem like an innocuous snack, but biscuits are among the most common UPF sources in Bangladesh. The South Asia Biobank study found biscuits were the most common UPF source across the regions it examined.
Chanachur and other packaged savoury snacks are another widely consumed category. The Bangladesh survey ranked chanachur among the three most frequently consumed processed and ultra-processed food categories.
Instant noodles, often eaten as a quick meal or evening snack, were similarly common.
The same study found an average sodium content of 1,515.8mg per 100g in instant noodles, while the products analysed showed inconsistent compliance with WHO sodium benchmarks.
Bangladesh’s concern goes beyond calories
The Bangladeshi data also raise concerns about the nutritional composition of these products.
The survey of 120 top-selling processed and ultra-processed food products found particularly high sodium levels in instant noodles, soups, pickles and savoury snacks. It also found discrepancies between laboratory-measured and label-reported sodium levels, with under-reporting in 40% of products and no sodium information on 9%.
The US study also found that higher UPF consumption was associated with higher BMI, HbA1c and diastolic blood pressure, as well as a greater prevalence of metabolic syndrome, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer.
Importantly, researchers adjusted their models for a broad measure of overall nutritional quality.
Many of the associations weakened but remained, suggesting that poor nutritional quality alone did not fully account for the observed relationships.
However, the study has important limitations. Dietary intake can be misclassified, some analyses were cross-sectional and therefore vulnerable to reverse causation, and residual confounding cannot be ruled out.
The findings therefore do not mean that eating a packet of biscuits, a bowl of chanachur or instant noodles raises an individual’s chance of death by a measurable 4%.
Rather, the significance lies in the broader dietary pattern: as ultra-processed foods account for a larger share of a person’s diet, researchers observed a progressively higher risk of death from any cause.
For Bangladesh, where such foods are already widely consumed, the findings add to a growing body of evidence that the nutritional quality and processing of everyday packaged foods deserve greater attention.