Burgers, Fries May Worsen Asthma, Study Finds

Rafael Nadal of Spain poses with the trophy and the Spanish flag after winning the men's final match against Novak Djokovic of Serbia at the French Open tennis tournament in Paris, Monday June 11, 2012. The Eiffel Tower and Seine river are in the background. / AP Photo/Michel Euler

High-fat meals that have become common in westernized countries may have another side effect beyond bulging waistlines. They also may worsen asthma attacks, a new study finds.

The findings, reported on by LiveScience, showed that asthma patients who ate a high-fat meal of burgers and hash browns experienced increased inflammation in their airways, as opposed to patients who ate a low-fat meal of yogurt. Those who ate the fatty meals also didn't respond as well to treatment.

"If these results can be confirmed by further research, this suggests that strategies aimed at reducing dietary fat intake may be useful in managing asthma," study researcher Lisa Wood, of the University of Newcastle, told LiveScience.

Asthma has become increasingly prevalent in recent decades, increasing in frequency by 75 percent between 1980 and 1994. In 2007, around 34.1 million Americans had asthma, according to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.

[NoWayJose9999]

This sounds like a bunch of crap.
I bet if I drank a quart of gravy every day for a year, my asthma woudn't be any worse..

[FoolKiller]

Just wait until it occurs to ObamaNanny that knives and forks are sharp, and spoons are a choking hazard. He'll have us all eating with our fingers, assuming he leaves us anything to eat (or all our fingers, for that matter).

[Paul123z]

The first question that springs to mind without having seen the study is, were the hash browns cooked in artificial trans fats? Trans-fatty acids are well-documented to increase inflammation which is the main reason why they are being pressured off the market. At the same time, there is a commercial incentive to denigrating fats in general in the diet as opposed to carbohydrates as the later have a much longer shelf life and don't go rancid. Indeed, one of the main benefits, commercially speaking, of trans-fats, aside from being cheap is their longer shelf life. Not that one can't have an unhealthy overly fatty diet, but simply that I would have to question whether the asthma effect being documented here relates to the consumption of artificial trans-fats versus yogurt as opposed to the consumption of a high fat meal versus yogurt. There is a good discussion and introduction to trans-fats here, http://healthjournalclub.blogspot.com/2010/03/100-year-diet-revisited-trans-fats.html
if anyone might be interested.

[Nate650]

Exactly, such studies don't distinguish the type of fat or beef used. Industrial beef and naturally raised grass-fed beef are different animals. There IS such thing as a healthy, wholesome burger--one made with grass-fed beef, preservative-free whole-grain bun (the bun shouldn't have more than five or so ingredients), and organic lettuce and condiments. There is so much information hidden from the consumer that most people don't realize that the vast majority of foods that are regarded as unhealthy today (or foods that people try to limit) have been made unhealthy because of the horrific ways way grow/raise these foods today.

[Nate650]

Correction: "ways we" instead of "ways way"

[parisdakar]

Are there really dopes out there that think burgers and fries are good food?

[Nate650]

A burger can be made good food, see my previous post.

[formrusmcsgt]

Spineless parents will by asthmatic, obese, Junior his whopper and fries anyway.....

[rocketjl]

Sounds like real justification to raise taxes for Obama.

We know about trans fats and cholesterol. So here we have a narrow article about how fast food affects health and so we have to tax it. Dress it anyway you want, we know Obama is going to raise taxes on the little man that eats mostly burgers and fries. Oh, don't worry about the soda that goes with the meal combo, Obama already has his clowns laying groundwork to tax them too.

[fastdraw2]

The little man stays little because the big men profit from his stupidity enormously. First by convincing him to eat the garbage and then by charging obscene fees to treat him when his weight becomes a health problem. It's all part of free enterprise so don't complain.

[borg99]

What a classic right-wing, knee-jerk reaction. Here is an article about kids' health -- KIDS' HEALTH! -- and all this guy can do is fret that this subject will somehow result in higher taxes.

For the right wing, there is only one issue in the entire world -- tax cuts. Human needs, human safety and human well-being mean nothing to them -- it's all about the bottom line of big corporations.