Ultraprocessed foods are turning human thighs into well-marbled steaks | CNN

The image looks like a slice of highly marbled flesh, reminiscent of a high-end steak with abundant fine-grained streaks of fat. But that’s not dinner. It’s an MRI scan of the thigh of a 62-year-old woman who obtained 87% of her annual calories from ultraprocessed food. “This participant’s diet was mainly comprised of cold cereals, chocolate candy or candy bars, regular soft drinks or bottled sugary drinks,” said Dr. Zehra Akkaya, a researcher and consultant in the Clinical and Translational Musculoskeletal Imaging Research group at the University of California, San Francisco. Hidden streaks of fat hiding between and within muscle fibers can signal serious health problems, said Akkaya, the lead author of a new study that analyzed how ultraprocessed food impacts intramuscular fat in people at risk for knee osteoporosis. Ultraprocessed foods have been linked to weight gain and obesity and the development of chronic conditions including cancer, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and depression. Such foods may even shorten life. More than 50% of the calories consumed by adults in the US come from ultraprocessed foods, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and P

Apr 14, 2026 → Apr 14, 2026