Common Food Ingredients Linked to Higher Heart Disease Risk, Scientists Find

A new study has put familiar packaged-food ingredients back under the spotlight. The ingredients are not exotic chemicals hidden in rare products, but common preservative additives used to help foods last longer, keep colour, slow spoilage, or protect flavour in industrial foods.

The research, published in the European Heart Journal, followed 112,395 adults in France’s NutriNet-Santé cohort between 2009 and 2024. It found associations between higher intake of some preservative food additives and higher incidence of hypertension or cardiovascular disease, but experts stress the study is observational, meaning it cannot prove the additives directly caused the risk.