The share of industrial products without additives increased from 13 to 18% according to ANSES study. However, the scientific community still lacks data to determine the consequences of these chemical components on the health of the consumer.

E-333, E-249 or E-283 ... these acronyms that go through the ingredient lists of food products are generally little known to consumers. Dyes, emulsifiers or flavor enhancers ... these are food additives that enhance the taste or change the appearance of prepared industrial foods. However, if the share of products without any additive went from 13 to 18% - according to a study of the Food Safety Agency (ANSES) published Wednesday, and which sifts 30,000 products - the real effects of these components on health remain largely unknown.

"Work carried out in the Nutrinet-Santé cohort, on more than 100,000 French adults, showed risks associated with consumption of ultra-processed foods, which for many contain food additive cocktails," notes Europe 1 Mathilde Touvier, who heads the nutritional epidemiology research team at Inserm. "We have seen an association with the increased risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease and other diseases," said this nutritionist who focuses on the risks associated with the accumulation of different additives in the same food.

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While 78% of the products studied by ANSES contain additives, 53% contain three and 4% use more than ten. At this stage, however, the scientific community is sorely lacking in data to determine their actual health effects. "A lot of work is being done by the European Food Safety Agency to evaluate these additives but researchers can only rely on the available data which are mainly experimental data (ie data from conducted in vitro or on animals, ed ), "explains Mathilde Touvier. "There is a huge shortage of data on human health in the long run," says the scientist.

In parallel with the study conducted by ANSES, the League against cancer, the application Yuka and the NGO Foodwatch Wednesday launched a petition to end the use of nitrite salts, sometimes indicated on the labels under codes E249, E250, E251 and E252 and generally used in deli meats. These three organizations denounce their involvement in certain digestive cancers.