8 common food additives linked to high blood pressure and heart disease

Common preservatives hiding in processed foods may carry unexpected heart risks, with heavy consumption linked to substantially higher rates of high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease. Researchers identified eight widely used preservatives associated with hypertension, although the observational study cannot prove they were directly responsible. Common food preservatives found across the processed food supply may be associated with a greater risk of high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease, according to research published in the European Heart Journal. The study was led by Dr. Mathilde Touvier, a research director at INSERM (the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research), and Anaïs Hasenböhler, PhD student, both from the Nutritional Epidemiology Research Team at the Université Sorbonne Paris Nord and Université Paris Cité, France.

Preservatives are added to foods for several reasons, including preventing the growth of bacteria and mold, slowing spoilage, and helping products maintain their color, flavor, or freshness for longer. Because these ingredients are so widely used, researchers wanted to better understand whether long-term exposure could be connected to cardiovascular health. Ms. Hasenböhler said: "Food preservatives are used in hundreds of thousands of industrially processed foods. Experimental studies suggest that some preservative food additives may be harmful to cardiovascular health, but we have not had enough evidence on the impact of these ingredients in