A burger or fried chicken with a side of diabetes?
The Mongolian Death Worm
Reuters Health
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
By Joene Hendry
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Avoiding "fast food" burgers and fried
chicken may cut your risk of developing type 2 diabetes -- the kind
closely linked to obesity, new research hints.
Regularly eating "super sized" portions of high calorie fast foods is
widely viewed as a contributing factor to the growing number of
Americans with bulging waistlines.
Moreover, "it is well established that becoming overweight or obese
greatly increases a person's chance of developing (type 2) diabetes,"
Dr. Julie R. Palmer of Boston University in Massachusetts commented in
an email to Reuters Health.
Now Palmer and colleagues report that black women who ate fast food
burgers or fried chicken at least twice a week were 40 to 70 percent
more likely to develop type 2 diabetes over 10 years than their
counterparts who never ate these calorie-laden foods.
According to a report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition,
Palmer's team looked at fast food consumption, lifestyle habits, and
the development of diabetes in 44,072 black women who filled out
biennial questionnaires, beginning in 1995.
Compared with women who claimed, in 1995 and again in 2001, to never
eat fast foods, those who ate burgers, fried chicken or fish, or
Chinese food more than once a week had higher body mass index (BMI) on
average.
BMI is a standard measure used to gauge how fat or thin a person is. A
normal BMI is between 18.5 and 24.9.
According to Palmer and colleagues, not only was the BMI of the fast
food eaters in the 28 to 29 range - clearly overweight according to
the U.S. Centers for Disease Control -- this group also gained more
weight during the course of the study.
In the 2,873 women who developed diabetes over 10 years, the
researchers noted greater likelihood for the blood sugar disorder in
frequent burger and fried chicken eaters, but not eaters of other fast
foods, when they allowed for age, education, family history of
diabetes, and lifestyle and dietary factors linked to diabetes risk.
However, allowing for body mass reduced the burgers/fried chicken and
diabetes link, indicating that associated weight gain that comes with
eating too much fast food explains most of the diabetes cases.
Palmer's team suggests similar associations are likely for other women
and men, and highlight the need for further investigations into any
fast food/diabetes link among other populations.
SOURCE: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, published online
December 16, 2009