An overview of the UK Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition’s assessments and recommendations on processed foods and sweeteners

Abstract
This paper summarises the UK Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition’s (SACN) 2023 and 2025 assessments of processed foods and health and its 2025 review of the WHO guideline on non-sugar sweeteners (NSS). On processed foods, SACN sought to identify available evidence on existing processed food classification systems, applying NOVA to UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey data and associations between food processing and health outcomes. For NSS, health outcomes of greatest policy relevance to the UK were considered. The assessments were undertaken in line with SACN’s Framework for the evaluation of evidence. SACN found that NOVA dominated the research literature and ultra-processed food (UPF) constitutes a significant proportion of UK dietary energy intake, especially among children. Higher UPF consumption was consistently associated with increased risks of adverse health outcomes, although not for all subgroups. Important limitations included most evidence being observational and inconsistent adjustment for covariables. For NSS, randomised controlled trials indicate a small reduction in body weight when NSS replace sugars, whereas prospective cohort studies indicate higher NSS intake is associated with higher measures of body fatness and may be associated with a range of adverse health outcomes. The findings were based on low- and/or very low-certainty evidence. SACN concluded that, on balance, most people are likely to benefit from reducing consumption of processed foods high in energy, saturated fat, salt and free sugars and low in fibre. SACN made a precautionary recommendation that intake of NSS be minimised. SACN made a range of recommendations to the government on processed foods and sweeteners.