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Ultra-Processed Foods Add Fat Without Extra Calories and Disrupt Hormones

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September 5, 2025

Obese Couple Eating Pizza on Sofa — Even without overeating, ultra-processed foods cause men to gain more fat and absorb pollutants that damage fertility. Scientists say the processing itself, not just the calories, is what makes these diets so harmful. Credit: Shutterstock

Ultra-processed foods don’t just pack on pounds — they change the body in hidden ways.

In a tightly controlled study, young men gained more fat mass on a processed diet even when calorie counts were the same as unprocessed meals. Researchers also found worrying spikes in plastic-derived chemicals, along with drops in testosterone and other key fertility hormones.

Obesity, Diabetes, and Sperm Decline

Over the last 50 years, obesity and type 2 diabetes have climbed dramatically, while sperm quality has steadily declined. One factor that may be fueling these troubling shifts is the growing reliance on ultra-processed foods, which have been tied to numerous health problems. What scientists still debate is whether the harm comes from the industrial ingredients, the processing methods, or simply because these foods make people eat more than they need.

A new study provides fresh insight. Researchers found that people put on more weight when eating an ultra-processed diet compared to a diet of minimally processed foods, even though both contained the exact same number of calories. The human trial also revealed that ultra-processed meals exposed participants to higher levels of pollutants already linked to lower sperm quality. The work was published in the journal Cell Metabolism.

Proving the Hidden Harm

“Our results prove that ultra-processed foods harm our reproductive and metabolic health, even if they’re not eaten in excess. This indicates that it is the processed nature of these foods that makes them harmful,” says Jessica Preston, lead author of the study, who carried out the research during her PhD at the University of Copenhagen’s NNF Center for Basic Metabolic Research (CBMR).

Same Calories, Different Outcomes

To get the best possible data, the scientists compared the health impact of unprocessed and ultra-processed diets on the same person. They recruited 43 men aged 20 to 35, who spent three weeks on each of the two diets, with three months ‘washout’ in between. Half started on the ultra-processed and half started on the unprocessed diet. Half of the men also received a high-calorie diet with an extra 500 daily calories, while half received the normal amount of calories for their size, age and physical activity levels. They were not told which diet they were on. Both the unprocessed and ultra-processed diets had the same amount of calories, protein, carbs and fats.

Men gained around 1 kg more of fat mass while on the ultra-processed diet compared to the unprocessed diet, regardless of whether they were on the normal or excess calorie diet. Several other markers of cardiovascular health were also affected.

Ultra-Processed Foods Polluted With Toxins

The scientists also discovered a worrying increase in the level of the hormone-disrupting phthalate cxMINP, a substance used in plastics, in men on the ultra-processed diet. Men on this diet also saw decreases in their levels of testosterone and follicle-stimulating hormone, which are crucial for sperm production.

“We were shocked by how many body functions were disrupted by ultra-processed foods, even in healthy young men. The long-term implications are alarming and highlight the need to revise nutritional guidelines to better protect against chronic disease,” says the study’s senior author Professor Romain Barrès from the University of Copenhagen’s NNF Center for Basic Metabolic Research, and the Université Côte d’Azur.

Reference: “Effect of ultra-processed food consumption on male reproductive and metabolic health” by Jessica M. Preston, Jo Iversen, Antonia Hufnagel, Line Hjort, Jodie Taylor, Clara Sanchez, Victoria George, Ann N. Hansen, Lars Ängquist, Susan Hermann, Jeffrey M. Craig, Signe Torekov, Christian Lindh, Karin S. Hougaard, Marcelo A. Nóbrega, Stephen J. Simpson and Romain Barrès, 28 August 2025, Cell Metabolism.
DOI: 10.1016/j.cmet.2025.08.004

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UCLA Engineers Build Room-Temperature Quantum-Inspired Computer

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September 5, 2025

Virtual Data Transmission Futuristic Computer Chip — Scientists have built a physics-inspired computing system that uses oscillators, rather than digital processing, to solve complex optimization problems. Their prototype runs at room temperature and promises faster, low-power performance. Credit: Shutterstock

Experimental device harnesses quantum properties for efficient processing at room temperature.

Engineers are working to design computers capable of handling a difficult class of tasks known as combinatorial optimization problems. These challenges are central to many everyday applications, including telecommunications planning, scheduling, and route optimization for travel.

Current computing technologies face physical limits on how much processing power can be built into a chip, and the energy required to train artificial intelligence models is enormous.

A collaborative team from UCLA and UC Riverside has introduced a new strategy to address these limitations and tackle some of the hardest optimization problems. Instead of representing all information digitally, their system processes data through a network of oscillators — components that shift back and forth at defined frequencies. This architecture, called an Ising machine, excels at parallel computing, enabling many calculations to run at the same time. The solution to the problem is reached when the oscillators fall into synchrony.

Quantum properties at room temperature

In their report published in Physical Review Applied, the researchers described a device that relies on quantum properties connecting electrical activity with vibrations inside a material. Unlike most existing quantum computing approaches, which must be cooled to extremely low temperatures to preserve their quantum state, this device can function at room temperature.

Scanning Electron Image and Circuit Diagrams of Coupled Oscillators — Figure: (upper panels) Scanning-electron-microscope image showing a charge-density-wave device channel in the coupled oscillator circuit. Pseudo-coloring is used for clarity. Circuit schematic of the coupled oscillator circuit. (lower panels) Illustration of solving the max-cut optimization problem, showing the 6 × 6 connected graph, circuit representation of the six coupled oscillators using the weights described in the connectivity matrix, and values of the phase-sensitivity function. Credit: Alexander Balandin

“Our approach is physics-inspired computing, which has recently emerged as a promising method to solve complex optimization problems,” said corresponding author Alexander Balandin, the Fang Lu Professor of Engineering and distinguished professor of materials science and engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering. “It leverages physical phenomena involving strongly correlated electron–phonon condensate to perform computation through physical processes directly, thus achieving greater energy efficiency and speed.”

Materials linking quantum and classical physics

The research showed that oscillators naturally evolve to a ground state, in which they’re synced up, allowing the machine to solve combinatorial optimization problems.

Alexander Balandin. Credit: Alexander Balandin

Balandin and his colleagues used a special material to bridge the gap between quantum mechanics — counterintuitive rules governing interactions between subatomic particles — and the more familiar physics of everyday life. Their prototype hardware is based on a form of tantalum sulfide, a “quantum material” that makes it possible to reveal the switching between electrical and vibrational phases.

The new technology has the potential for low-power operation; at the same time, it can be compatible with conventional silicon technology.

“Any new physics-based hardware has to be integrated with the standard digital silicon CMOS technology to impact data information processing systems,” said Balandin, a member of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA, or CNSI. “The two-dimensional charge-density-wave material that we selected for this demonstration has the potential for such integration.”

Reference: “Charge-density-wave quantum oscillator networks for solving combinatorial optimization problems” by Jonas Olivier Brown, Taosha Guo, Fabio Pasqualetti and Alexander A. Balandin, 18 August 2025, Physical Review Applied.
DOI: 10.1103/zmlj-6nn7

The coupled oscillators in this research were built at the UCLA Nanofabrication Laboratory, jointly run by CNSI and UCLA Samueli, and tested in UCLA’s Phonon Optimized Engineered Materials laboratory.

The study was funded by the Office of Naval Research and the Army Research Office.

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Neolithic Mendik Tepe Site Discovered In Southeastern Türkiye Is Older Than Gobeklitepe

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September 4, 2025

Conny Waters – AncientPages.com – Mendik Tepe, with its earliest Neolithic layers, is located in the rural Payamli area of Eyyubiye, Sanliurfa Province, and was discovered by Fatma Sahin, the excavation director of Cakmaktepe, where excavation efforts at Çakmaktepe began in 2021.

An aerial view of the excavations carried out at Mendik Tepe, which is thought to be older than Gobeklitepe, described as the “zero point of history” and inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2018, and Karahantepe in Sanliurfa, Türkiye, Aug. 27, 2025. (AA Photo)

Now, the site is investigated by Professor Douglas Baird of the University of Liverpool in collaboration with Turkish and British institutions. The excavations are part of the wider Taş Tepeler (“Stone Hills”) project, in which are included several Neolithic sites in the region.

This systematic approach enables researchers to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the network of prehistoric settlements that emerged in this region thousands of years ago.

The findings suggest that Mendik Tepe belongs to the dawn of the Neolithic. Although it is associated with Göbekli Tepe and Karahantepe, its structures show unique forms and may even precede them, ” explains Douglas Baird

Mendik Tepe is very ancient site, but initial analyses indicate that it can be dated to the dawn of the Neolithic period, even be older than Göbekli Tepe, dated to around 9600 BC.

Image credit: AA

Should these assumptions be validated, researchers say, we will be confronted with a discovery of an enormous significance. The Neolithic transformation is believed to have started in southeastern Turkey over 11,000 years ago.

It was then that people began to move from the nomadic lifestyle of hunter-gatherers to a sedentary style. Baird points out that Mendik Tepe may be the key to understanding how and why people abandoned nomadic gathering and settled permanently, starting to grow plants.

Mendik Tepe stands out for its multifunctional character against the background of other positions from this period.

Image credit: AA

Archaeologists have discovered structures of varying size and purpose, suggesting a complex social organization. Three types of structures were identified at the site: small structures with a diameter of approximately 3 meters (likely used for storing or preparing food), medium-sized buildings with a diameter of 4-5 meters (which could have served as houses), and large structures of likely ritual significance.

Mendik Tepe is set apart from Göbekli Tepe by its diverse range of functions. While Göbekli Tepe primarily served as a ritual center, Mendik Tepe appears to have been a place where daily life and spiritual practices coexisted. This distinction highlights the multifaceted role that Mendik Tepe played in its historical context.

Mendik Tepe’s architecture is also fascinating.

Unlike the characteristic T-shaped pillars found at Göbekli Tepe and Karahantepe, Mendik Tepe is distinguished by vertical stones of various forms.

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Written by Conny Waters – AncientPages.com Staff Writer

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Mystery Of The Cursed Ancient Temple With Treasures Guarded By Serpents

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September 4, 2025

Ellen Lloyd – AncientPages.com – This ancient and enigmatic temple, with its perilous vaults, has captivated the imagination for generations. Legends speak of a curse that befalls those who dare to violate this sacred site.

When treasure seekers attempted to breach the temple’s defenses, deadly serpents reportedly emerged from one of the vaults. Could there truly be a curse at play? Stories suggest that using man-made technology to open the mysterious vault triggers calamities around the temple grounds.

It is said that there is only one specific method for unlocking its secrets; any other approach invites disaster. The fear of this curse has persisted through time, as tales of the temple have been passed down through countless generations.

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The Startling Healing Shortcut That Might Also Fuel Cancer

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September 4, 2025

Cells ‘Vomit’ Waste to Promote Healing — A new study from WashU Medicine identifies a previously unknown way that cells purge waste in a process that helps them revert to a stem cell-like state to promote healing after injury. Here, three mouse stomach cells (numbered) are shown jettisoning cellular debris through cavities (white) that form in their membranes. The researchers dubbed the new purging process “cathartocytosis,” combining Greek root words meaning cellular cleansing. Credit: Jeffrey Brown

Scientists have uncovered a strange and messy new way that injured cells may heal themselves.

In addition to known processes like programmed cell death and controlled recycling, researchers discovered that cells can suddenly “vomit” their internal machinery, purging themselves to reset into a stem cell-like state. This shortcut, called cathartocytosis, speeds up regeneration but leaves behind waste that may fuel chronic inflammation and cancer.

A Hidden Cellular Purge

When cells are injured, they activate a series of carefully controlled responses to repair the damage. These include a well-known self-destruct routine that removes dead or defective cells, along with a more recently recognized ability for aging cells to revert to a younger state so they can rebuild healthy tissue.

In a new study using mice, researchers from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Baylor College of Medicine uncovered another healing strategy that had not been seen before. The team identified a cellular purge that helps damaged cells quickly reset into a stem cell-like form. They named this newly described process cathartocytosis, drawing from Greek words meaning cellular cleansing.

The findings, published in Cell Reports, came from experiments on stomach injury. By using this model, scientists were able to examine how cells succeed or fail at repairing themselves after being harmed by infection or inflammatory disease.

A Cellular Cleanse With a Twist

“After an injury, the cell’s job is to repair that injury. But the cell’s mature cellular machinery for doing its normal job gets in the way,” said first author Jeffrey W. Brown, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology at WashU Medicine. “So, this cellular cleanse is a quick way of getting rid of that machinery so it can rapidly become a small, primitive cell capable of proliferating and repairing the injury. We identified this process in the GI tract, but we suspect it is relevant in other tissues as well.”

Brown compared cathartocytosis to “vomiting” out cellular waste, a shortcut that allows the cell to clear clutter and concentrate on rebuilding tissue faster than it could through the slower, step-by-step breakdown of waste.

But shortcuts often come with drawbacks. The researchers note that cathartocytosis is rapid but disorderly, which could explain why some healing processes fail, particularly during long-term injury. If the process continues unchecked, as during infection, it may lead to chronic inflammation and ongoing cellular damage, conditions that create fertile ground for cancer. The buildup of expelled waste itself may also serve as a marker for tracking or detecting cancer, the investigators said.

A Novel Cellular Process

The researchers identified cathartocytosis within an important regenerative injury response called paligenosis, which was first described in 2018 by the current study’s senior author, Jason C. Mills, MD, PhD. Now at the Baylor College of Medicine, Mills began this work while he was a faculty member in the Division of Gastroenterology at WashU Medicine and Brown was a postdoctoral researcher in his lab.

In paligenosis, injured cells shift away from their normal roles and undergo a reprogramming process to an immature state, behaving like rapidly dividing stem cells, as happens during development. Originally, the researchers assumed the decluttering of cellular machinery in preparation for this reprogramming happens entirely inside cellular compartments called lysosomes, where waste is digested in a slow and contained process.

From Dismissed Debris to Discovery

From the start, though, the researchers noticed debris outside the cells. They initially dismissed this as unimportant, but the more external waste they saw in their early studies, the more Brown began to suspect that something deliberate was going on. He utilized a model of mouse stomach injury that triggered the reprogramming of mature cells to a stem cell state all at once, making it obvious that the “vomiting” response — now happening in all the stomach cells simultaneously — was a feature of paligenosis, not a bug. In other words, the vomiting process was not just an accidental spill here and there but a newly identified, standard way cells behaved in response to injury.

Although they discovered cathartocytosis happening during paligenosis, the researchers said cells could potentially use cathartocytosis to jettison waste in other, more worrisome situations, like giving mature cells that ability to start to act like cancer cells.

The Downside to Downsizing

While the newly discovered cathartocytosis process may help injured cells proceed through paligenosis and regenerate healthy tissue more rapidly, the tradeoff comes in the form of additional waste products that could fuel inflammatory states, making chronic injuries harder to resolve and correlating with increased risk of cancer development.

“In these gastric cells, paligenosis — reversion to a stem cell state for healing — is a risky process, especially now that we’ve identified the potentially inflammatory downsizing of cathartocytosis within it,” Mills said. “These cells in the stomach are long-lived, and aging cells acquire mutations. If many older mutated cells revert to stem cell states in an effort to repair an injury — and injuries also often fuel inflammation, such as during an infection — there’s an increased risk of acquiring, perpetuating, and expanding harmful mutations that lead to cancer as those stem cells multiply.”

Infection, Inflammation, and Cancer

More research is needed, but the authors suspect that cathartocytosis could play a role in perpetuating injury and inflammation in Helicobacter pylori infections in the gut. H. pylori is a type of bacteria known to infect and damage the stomach, causing ulcers and increasing the risk of stomach cancer.

The findings also could point to new treatment strategies for stomach cancer and perhaps other GI cancers. Brown and WashU Medicine collaborator Koushik K. Das, MD, an associate professor of medicine, have developed an antibody that binds to parts of the cellular waste ejected during cathartocytosis, providing a way to detect when this process may be happening, especially in large quantities. In this way, cathartocytosis might be used as a marker of precancerous states that could allow for early detection and treatment.

Guiding Healing Without Harm

“If we have a better understanding of this process, we could develop ways to help encourage the healing response and perhaps, in the context of chronic injury, block the damaged cells undergoing chronic cathartocytosis from contributing to cancer formation,” Brown said.

Reference: “Cathartocytosis: Jettisoning of cellular material during reprogramming of differentiated cells” by Jeffrey W. Brown, Xiaobo Lin, Gabriel Anthony Nicolazzi, Xuemei Liu, Thanh Nguyen, Megan D. Radyk, Joseph Burclaff and Jason C. Mills, 30 July 2025, Cell Reports.
DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2025.116070

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), grant numbers K08DK132496, R21AI156236, P30DK052574, P30DK056338, R01DK105129, R01CA239645, F31DK136205, K99GM159354 and F31CA236506; the Department of Defense, grant number W81XWH-20-1-0630; the American Gastroenterological Association, grant numbers AGA2021-5101 and AGA2024-13-01; and a Philip and Sima Needleman Student Fellowship in Regenerative Medicine. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.

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Obesity, Diabetes, and Sperm Decline

Proving the Hidden Harm

Same Calories, Different Outcomes

Ultra-Processed Foods Polluted With Toxins

Quantum properties at room temperature

Materials linking quantum and classical physics

A Hidden Cellular Purge

A Cellular Cleanse With a Twist

A Novel Cellular Process

From Dismissed Debris to Discovery

The Downside to Downsizing

Infection, Inflammation, and Cancer

Guiding Healing Without Harm

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