Certain food additive mixtures may be associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes

Study Finds Link Between Food Additive Mixes and Type 2 Diabetes

Food additives are widely used in ultra-processed foods — the kind you often find in supermarket shelves like ready-to-eat meals, desserts, soft drinks, sauces, and snacks. While most safety checks on these additives have focused on each one separately, real-life diets involve consuming them in combinations. Until now, little was known about how these mixtures might affect health.

In a recent large-scale study, researchers from several French institutions — including Inserm, INRAE, and Sorbonne Paris Nord University — explored whether consuming combinations of common food additives could be linked to the development of type 2 diabetes.

They analyzed health and dietary data from more than 100,000 French adults who are part of the ongoing NutriNet-Santé study. Participants logged everything they ate and drank over multiple days, including brand names, allowing researchers to track which additives were consumed together.

Using this information, scientists identified five main mixtures of food additives often eaten together. These included sweeteners, colorings, preservatives, emulsifiers (used to change texture), and acidity regulators — substances often found in processed products.

Out of the five mixtures, two were linked to a higher risk of type 2 diabetes, even after accounting for things like overall diet quality, age, weight, and lifestyle habits:

1. The first high-risk mix included emulsifiers like carrageenans, xanthan gum, guar gum, and modified starches, as well as preservatives and colorings. These are commonly found in stocks, creamy desserts, sauces, and processed fats.

2. The second mix involved ingredients typically found in diet sodas and artificially-sweetened drinks. It contained sweeteners (like aspartame and sucralose), colorings, acidifiers, and even coating agents like carnauba wax.

The researchers also noticed that the additives might interact with each other in complex ways. In some cases, the combination could make their effects stronger (a "cocktail effect") or weaker, depending on how they react together.

This is the first major study to look at how real-life additive mixtures — not just single ingredients — might relate to disease risk. Lead researcher Marie Payen de la Garanderie said the results show that some commonly used additives could be contributing to the rise in type 2 diabetes and might be a modifiable risk factor.

Still, the researchers stress this is an observational study, meaning it shows associations but doesn’t prove cause and effect. However, it aligns with earlier lab studies suggesting that food additive combos can have harmful effects.

Dr. Mathilde Touvier, who led the study, says these findings support the idea that public health policies should rethink how food additives are evaluated, especially when they're commonly eaten together. The study appears in the journal PLOS Medicine.