ATTENTION: FAST-FOOD LOVERS....... How often do you dine-in or buy take aways at McDonalds, Wendy's or KFC, etc...? Sounds pathetic really while I love going to McDonalds to have my Chicken burger meal. All I know of is that, for as long as you don't have them everyday (we have at least once a week), then its alright I guess.
... but read all the way down to know the truth about FAST-FOODS, and how they could affect our health and lives.....
Would you like a stroke with your burger? People who live in neighbourhoods with numerous fast food outlets are more likely to suffer a stroke than those in neighbourhoods with fewer such outlets, according to a new study of one Texas city. This doesn't necessarily mean that their burgers, French fries and fried chicken cause stroke, says Lewis Morgenstern, an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor who presented the study at the International Stroke Conference in San Diego, California. Rather, fast food could be an indicator for other factors that lead to poor health, such as lack of exercise or poor air quality.
Morgenstern's team recorded all 1,247 strokes that occurred in Nueces County, Texas between 2000 and mid-2003. The region is home to Corpus Christi, a city home to 280,000 people and 262 fast food restaurants. His team split the city into 64 neighbourhoods with roughly the same population, based on census data.
Burger prohibition?
People living in neighbourhoods with an average of 33 fast food restaurants suffered 13% more strokes than people who lived near just 12 fast food joints, Morgenstern's team found after accounting for differences due to age, race and income. Each additional McDonalds, Burger King or Taco Bell upped the risk of stroke by about 1%.His team hopes to next nail down how fast food relates to stroke. "It may turn out that consumption of fast food is the problem, but we're not at this stage yet," he says.
Daniel Lackland, an epidemiologist at the Medical University of South Carolina says fast food could be linked to stroke both directly and indirectly, but more research is needed before any official guidelines were put out, let alone before banning the consumption of fast food.
"I don't think [the association] is strong enough that you would go, right now, and say no fast food restaurants," he says.
