Your Blood and Urine are the New Food Logs: A New Way to Track Diet

What if you could track your junk food intake like a health score? New research published in PLOS Medicine shows it's possible by analyzing specific biomarkers in your blood and urine. Even if you can’t always control your cravings, your body can now reveal the truth about what you’ve been eating! “This is the first robust evidence that your body can literally ‘tell on you’ about the processed foods you eat,” says lead author Dr. Carmen Piernas from the University of Oxford (1^✔ ✔Trusted Source
Blood and urine tests reveal how much ultra-processed food you really eat, study finds

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The Processed Food Trap

Ultra-processed foods are products made with chemical additives, artificial flavors, emulsifiers, colorings, and preservatives. Although they are harmful to health, people still consume them for their enhanced flavor and taste, yet what lurks behind the flavor is a hidden danger.

These foods are manufactured by companies using industrial formulations that go far beyond basic cooking. Common examples include sodas, packaged snacks, instant noodles, breakfast cereals, fast food, and ready-to-eat meals.

• Ultra-processed foods have been linked to cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity.
• Up to 50% of the calories consumed by people in many nations come from processed foods.
• They are intended to decrease the feeling of fullness that leads to food addiction.

Yet people routinely underestimate or misreport how much of these foods they consume, posing a major challenge to nutrition science and public health surveillance.

Tracking Ultra-Processed Food Intake with Metabolite Scores

The research analyzed blood and urine samples from about 1211 participants in an observational study. The verified findings were presented as a controlled crossover feeding experiment to identify the metabolic patterns associated with the consumption of ultra-processed foods.

Six scores were developed to evaluate the consumption of ultra-processed foods by combining 8 to 40 different metabolites.

• Overall Ultra-Processed Food Intake Score: Capturing the general level of UPF consumption.
• Artificial Sweeteners Score: Metabolites associated with synthetic sweeteners commonly found in diet sodas and sugar-free products.
• Modified Fatty Acids Score: Reflecting intake of industrially altered fats present in processed snacks and fast foods.
• Processed Carbohydrates Score: Markers related to refined sugars and starches typical in UPFs like breakfast cereals and baked goods.
• Additives and Emulsifiers Score: Metabolites signaling exposure to food additives used to improve texture and shelf life.
• Packaging Contaminants Score: Metabolites indicative of chemicals leaching from plastic or packaging materials into food.

These six scores together provide a comprehensive biochemical fingerprint of ultra-processed food consumption. The results indicated that people with higher scores had greater intakes of UPFs rich in artificial sweeteners, modified fatty acids, and processed carbohydrates. The scores were tested on a group of individuals from various ethnicities, ages, and body types to ensure their reliability. These indicators remained accurate in predicting blood glucose levels even after adjusting for age, BMI, physical activity, and total calorie intake (2^✔ ✔Trusted Source
Identification and validation of poly-metabolite scores for diets high in ultra-processed food: An observational study and post-hoc randomized controlled crossover-feeding trial

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Metabolites: The Diet Detectives

During digestion, the food we ingest is broken down into small metabolites. These metabolites can be categorized based on the food we eat, byproducts of natural foods, and byproducts of chemical additives in processed foods. Based on the study, identified markers associated with

• Synthetic emulsifiers
• Advanced glycation end-products (AGEs)
• Nitrates/nitrites
• Phthalates and packaging contaminants

These substances left a distinctive signature in the bloodstream and urine and offered a biological footprint of the diet consumed. This further remains a breakthrough in personalized nutrition and public health monitoring.

Why Traditional Food Surveys Fail?

Getting people to recall what they have eaten or fill out questionnaires can be unreliable in many cases. Common mistakes made when completing questionnaires include forgetting, reporting unhealthy foods incorrectly, and trying to look healthier than they are. This approach, on the other hand, eliminates these problems because it offers a timely and accurate assessment of food consumption. In the real world, it could help doctors detect early dietary risks, support public health campaigns related to nutrition, and empower individuals to use data to make educated food choices.

Rethink Convenience and Choose Health

Your body is the reflection of what you eat!
Cutting down on ultra-processed foods (UPFs) doesn't require a complete diet overhaul; rather, small steps can help curb cravings and gradually reduce consumption over time. Try cooking at home with less processed ingredients, paying attention to food labels, swapping processed foods for healthier snacks like fresh fruits, nuts, or plain yogurt, and replacing sugary drinks with water. These small changes might seem simple, but they can have a significant long-term impact on your health and help establish a consistent, healthy eating pattern.

Ultra-processed food consumption is no longer a hidden habit; it’s now a measurable, modifiable risk factor. And with this research, we now have the power to track, target, and transform the way we eat.

“What You Eat Leaves a Trace — Let Your Blood Tell the Truth About Your Diet!”
References:

1. Blood and urine tests reveal how much ultra-processed food you really eat, study finds - (https://www.news-medical.net/news/20250521/Blood-and-urine-tests-reveal-how-much-ultra-processed-food-you-really-eat-study-finds.aspx)
2. Identification and validation of poly-metabolite scores for diets high in ultra-processed food: An observational study and post-hoc randomized controlled crossover-feeding trial - (https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1004560)

Source-Medindia