A new study from France has found that common preservatives in store-bought foods are associated with a higher risk of elevated blood pressure and cardiovascular events. Researchers reported a 29 percent greater risk of high blood pressure and a 16 percent higher risk of heart attacks and stroke among people who consumed more of these additives.
The findings, published Wednesday in the European Heart Journal, examined data from more than 112,000 participants in the NutriNet-Santé study, which has tracked diets across France since 2009. Participants logged every item they ate or drank by brand name for three days every six months, allowing researchers to match consumption patterns with medical records from the national health care system.
Senior author Mathilde Touvier, principal investigator of the NutriNet-Santé study and director of research at France’s National Institute of Health and Medical Research in Paris, noted that even so-called natural antioxidants such as citric acid and ascorbic acid were linked to a 22 percent greater risk of high blood pressure. “Naturally occurring ascorbic acid and added ascorbic acid — which may be chemically manufactured — may have different impacts on health,” Touvier said in an email. She added that the results for these food additives “are not true for natural substances found in fruits and vegetables.”
The study looked at 58 preservatives and focused on 17 that were consumed by at least 10 percent of participants. Eight of those were tied to higher blood pressure over the following decade. Among the non-antioxidant preservatives linked to the risk were potassium sorbate, potassium metabisulphite, and sodium nitrite, which are used in items such as wine, baked goods, cheeses, sauces, and processed meats like bacon and deli slices.
Tracy Parker, nutrition lead at the British Heart Foundation in London, who was not involved in the research, said the work helps explain why ultraprocessed foods appear more harmful than their sugar, salt, and fat content alone would suggest. “This is one of the first large studies to look at individual preservatives rather than treating ultra-processed foods as a single category,” Parker said in a statement. She noted that ultraprocessed foods have already been associated with roughly 50 percent higher risk of cardiovascular disease-related death.
Lead author Anaïs Hasenböhler, a doctoral student at the Nutritional Epidemiology Research Team at the Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, pointed out that preservatives appear in far more than just ultraprocessed foods. Prior work by the same team found that ultraprocessed items account for only 35 percent of foods containing preservatives. “There is no food group/item to remove from the diet in order to fix things,” Hasenböhler said. She recommended choosing fresh, uncooked items or frozen options preserved by low temperature rather than additives.
Five antioxidant preservatives were also associated with elevated blood pressure: ascorbic acid, sodium ascorbate, sodium erythorbate, citric acid, and rosemary extracts. Ascorbic acid in particular was linked to cardiovascular disease outcomes. Similar preservatives had previously been connected by the same research group to up to a 32 percent higher risk of various cancers and a 49 percent increased risk of type 2 diabetes.
Gunter Kuhnle, a professor of food and nutritional science at the University of Reading in England who was not part of the study, emphasized the practical role of preservatives. “Preservatives have an important role in the food system, not only by preventing food-borne diseases, but also by preventing spoilage, reducing food waste and extending shelf life,” Kuhnle said in a statement.
Rachel Richardson, a methods support unit manager for The Cochrane Collaboration who was not involved in the research, praised the study’s controls for factors such as age, body mass index, smoking, physical activity, and overall diet. “Other strengths of this study include the way in which they assessed people’s diets and their comprehensive approach to identifying hypertension and cardiovascular disease,” Richardson said. She added that while the observational design cannot prove causation, the signals warrant further investigation.
The research echoes a recent consensus from the European Society of Cardiology that highlights ultraprocessed foods as a global public health concern. Experts continue to stress that consumers should favor minimally processed foods when possible to limit exposure to these additives.