A study published in Lancet medical journal this week has confirmed what most of the doctors had suspected since ages. The study says that eating fast-food more than often predisposes you to Type 2 diabetes and heart troubles. It also makes you obese. This is the first time that a scientific study has statistically proven that fast-food is not more than junk for ones body.
The results were derived after 15 years of survey involving 3,000 young people enrolled in a study of cardiac health. The U.S. based team of medics that carried out the survey queried participants about their diet, physical activity and other lifestyle factors.
There are many factors that can predispose a person to obesity. Ands it is not so easy to pinpoint any one culprit. Scientist had carefully cancelled out other factors on statistical basis before they arrived at the conclusion. The study found that those who frequently ate fast-food gained 10 pounds more than those who did so less often. Such people were more than twice as likely to develop an insulin resistance.
Insulin is a key protein that controls blood sugar level. When the insulin level is upset the sugar level in the body gets imbalanced. This leads to Type 2 diabetes.
Dr. David Ludwig, director of the obesity program at Children's Hospital Boston and the senior author of the study said that "Fast-food is commonly recognized to have very poor nutritional quality. But there have been very few studies, essentially no long-term studies, which have documented the effects of this dietary pattern on the key chronic diseases of Western civilization -- obesity, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease."
"In the absence of such data, the fast-food industry had continued to claim that fast-food can be part of a healthful diet," he said.
Arne Astrup, an obesity expert at the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University in Copenhagen, Denmark, feels that the study clearly shows the relation between mushrooming fast-food joints and growing number of clinically obese people.
30,000 Americans die every year due to obesity related diseases. 30 per cent of Americans are already classed as clinically obese. The United Kingdom is fast-catching up with 23 per cent of its people obese.
