A type of food and drink that ‘kills 370,000 people in Europe every year’

Ultra-processed food, alcohol, tobacco and fossil fuels are wreaking havoc across Europe, killing 2.7 million people a year, the World Health Organization (WHO) has revealed.

Experts blame “powerful industries” for causing ill health and premature deaths by interfering with government policies aimed at reducing rates of cancer, heart disease and diabetes. The latest WHO report calls for “tight regulation to limit industry power” and urges governments to push for health policies that are often “contested, delayed, weakened or held back” by these industries.

According to the WHO, “more than 7,400 people die every day” in its European region from harmful products and practices “driven by commercial industries.” The report highlights that these commercial products are associated with 24% of all deaths, 51.4% of them due to cardiovascular diseases and 46.4% due to cancer. Overall, the tobacco, alcohol, ultra-processed food and fuel industries contribute to or are directly responsible for 2.7 million deaths each year in Europe.

Globally, the situation is equally dire: tobacco, ultra-processed foods, fossil fuels and alcohol cause 19 million deaths annually, accounting for 34 percent of all global deaths. Breaking it down further, the WHO attributes 1.15 million deaths per year in Europe to smoking, 426,857 deaths to alcohol, 117,290 to diets high in processed meat and 252,187 to diets high in salt.

The report shows that these numbers do not even include deaths caused by obesity, high blood pressure, high blood sugar or high cholesterol, all of which are related to unhealthy diets. The study called on governments to be aware of industry tactics such as blaming individuals, marketing, spreading misinformation, social media promotions, lobbying and “science debunking” such as funding research to promote its aims, Bristol Live reports.

The WHO stated that “the primary interest of all major corporations is profit” and that having a large market share “often translates into political power as well.” It continued: “Regardless of the product they sell, their (industry) interests are aligned with neither public health nor the broader public interest. Any policy that could affect their sales and profits is therefore a threat and they should have no role in the development of these policies.”

The report noted that beyond tobacco regulations, “global efforts to regulate harmful marketing have been disappointing at best.” He further added: “Although legal measures exist in several countries in the WHO European Region and around the world to regulate the marketing of alcohol and unhealthy food, they are often narrow in scope, focusing on specific media or settings, specific population groups or specific marketing techniques and, therefore, therefore, they do not provide sufficient protection.”

Additionally, the World Health Organization (WHO) mentioned that self-regulatory industry standards have proven to be ineffective. Dr Hans Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe, said: “Four industries kill at least 7,000 people every day in our region. The same large commercial entities block regulations that protect the public from harmful products and marketing and protect health policy from industrial interference.