The Companies That Made Marlboro Made Your Food

A special issue of the American Journal of Public Health traces ultra-processed foods to tobacco engineering, links them to dementia, and finds 80% of Americans want action.

• The tobacco moment for food

• Cigarette engineering, applied to food

• Why you can’t stop eating them

• The damage to the brain

• 80% of Americans want action

• What comes next

The tobacco moment for food

The American Journal of Public Health published a special issue today with 17 studies, editorials, and reviews on ultra-processed foods. Together, they build a case that these products are a public health crisis on the same scale as tobacco. And in many cases, they were made by the same companies using the same techniques.

A group of leading researchers is also launching a public education campaign called Fed UP to bring the science directly to consumers. No one involved takes food industry money.

Here is what the research found, and what it means.

Cigarette engineering, applied to food

Philip Morris, the maker of Marlboro cigarettes, bought into the food industry in the 1980s and spent two decades applying cigarette engineering to food. One study traces the history of Lunchables, which Philip Morris launched in 1988 while it owned Kraft General Foods. The company used the same consumer psychology behind the Marlboro Man, designing products to blur the line between food and toys. When parents started worrying about childhood obesity in the 1990s, Philip Morris used a technique it had developed to extract nicotine from tobacco leaf to remove fat from food. It brought flavor scientists from its German tobacco lab to work on making low-fat versions taste better.

A second study shows this was not limited to the U.S. Tobacco companies spread ultra-processed foods worldwide using the same distribution networks they had built for cigarettes. They acquired local food companies across the globe, streamlined production, and developed king-size food items modeled directly on king-size cigarettes. Philip Morris expanded aggressively into Canada, Europe, and Asia. R.J. Reynolds focused on Central and South America.

Those companies have since sold their food divisions. The products and formulations they created are still on shelves.

Why you can’t stop eating them

Another paper in the issue analyzed what makes certain foods hard to stop eating. Researchers tested more than 200 nutrient signatures to identify which foods Americans reported losing control over. Whole foods, fruits, vegetables, beans, fish, triggered no addictive responses.

The products that did were ultra-processed. The key: a combination of rapidly absorbed refined carbs and fat, delivered in concentrated doses. That combination does not exist in nature. It hits dopamine circuits the same way addictive drugs do, the same pathways that GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic appear to quiet. A separate national study found that more than 12% of older adults in the U.S. now meet clinical criteria for ultra-processed food addiction.

Ultra-processing breaks food down at the molecular level so the body absorbs nutrients almost instantly. It is why eating a whole orange and drinking a glass of orange juice hit the body so differently. The processing is the problem.

The damage to the brain

A separate study followed more than 5,000 Americans over 50 for nearly a decade. Those who ate the most ultra-processed foods had a 58% higher risk of developing dementia and a 46% higher risk of cognitive impairment. Processed meats drove the highest risk.

This is observational. It cannot prove cause and effect. But the association held after adjusting for income, education, smoking, exercise, alcohol, and existing chronic disease. It is consistent with prior studies. And there are plausible biological mechanisms: additives like emulsifiers alter the gut in ways that trigger inflammation, and inflammation is one of the key drivers of dementia. Nitrites in processed meats drive inflammation independently. In animal studies, artificial sweeteners like aspartame have caused problems with learning and memory.

The researchers found no safe threshold. Even moderate intake was linked to higher risk. People who ate the most whole foods had a 41% lower risk of dementia.

80% of Americans want action

The issue includes nationally representative polling. Seven in 10 Americans, across parties, believe ultra-processed foods are addictive. Over 80% want more safety testing, warning labels, and restrictions on marketing to children. Only about 1 in 10 trust that food companies can make healthy products. Support for tobacco-style lawsuits against food companies has jumped from 6% in 2003 to a majority today.

These are not fringe positions. This is bipartisan supermajority support for government intervention in a product category that makes up 60% to 70% of the American food supply.

What comes next

The dietary guidelines released in January told Americans to limit “highly processed foods” for the first time in 45 years. The FDA has identified ultra-processed foods as a 2026 priority and is working on a formal definition. Getting it right matters. A panel of researchers has proposed an operational definition based on the NOVA classification: a food is ultra-processed if it contains cosmetic additives like colors, flavors, or emulsifiers, or non-culinary ingredients like high-fructose corn syrup or protein isolates. Foods meeting the FDA’s criteria for “healthy” would be exempt. State bills that have tried narrower definitions have captured only about 13% of actual ultra-processed foods.

State attorneys general are exploring litigation similar to what broke open the tobacco industry in the 1990s. Those lawsuits forced the release of internal documents that showed how cigarettes were engineered to be addictive. That evidence shifted public opinion and opened the door for regulation. The food industry is already pushing back, lobbying for federal preemption laws that would block states from acting on their own, the same playbook tobacco used.

The food industry will argue the definition is not settled, that more research is needed, that personal responsibility is the answer. The 80% of Americans asking their government for help appear to disagree.