McBreakfast Could Kill You
2007Barry Weisleder 2007-06The page as the paper published it (Wayback Machine) →
From the paper's own web edition, recovered from the Internet Archive: the text as the paper put it online, not machine-read. The printed issue of June 2007 is not held.
By Barry Weisleder / June 2007 issue of Socialist Action newspaper
A single fast food meal can cause your blood pressure to spike, says a new University of Calgary study.
And such an instant jump could be a key to how high-fat meals produce heart disease over time, according to the lead researcher.
“We can measure this response after only one meal, which is remarkable,” said Tavis Campbell, a health psychology professor at the school.
“Most Canadians eat these sorts of fast-food meals on a fairly regular basis ... and, if we can see the effects after one sitting, it’s really striking to think about people who do this (two or three times a week).”
Campbell’s paper was published in May in the Journal of Nutrition.
In the study, subjects who ingested high-fat meals saw their blood pressure go up 1.25 to 1.5 times higher than counterparts who ate low-fat offerings when both were submitted to several standard stress tests. The tests, administered about two hours after eating, included public speaking assignments, math tests and immersing their hands in icy water.
The subjects were 30 young, healthy individuals, none of whom had any history of blood pressure or heart problems.
The high-fat meal was basically a large McDonald’s breakfast, consisting of hash browns, a Sausage McMuffin and an Egg McMuffin. The low-fat menu included Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes and Fruit Loops, a fruit bar and Sunny Delight orange drink.
“We already know that a high-fat diet is linked ... to cardiovascular disease, certain kinds of cancers and so on,” Campbell said.
“This is maybe an additional way that a high-fat diet can have a negative impact on cardiovascular health.”