Breakfast sandwich is a time bomb in a bun

Study finds that just 1 high-fat meal can affect your heart health

2012-10-31

(Press-News.org) Eat a breakfast sandwich and your body will be feeling the ill effects well before lunch – now that's fast food!

High-fat diets are associated with developing atherosclerosis (narrowing of the arteries) over a lifetime. But how quickly can damage start?

Just one day of eating a fat-laden breakfast sandwich – processed cheese and meat on a bun – and "your blood vessels become unhappy," says Heart and Stroke Foundation researcher Dr. Todd Anderson, director of the Libin Cardiovascular Institute of Alberta and head of cardiac science at the University of Calgary.

Atherosclerosis can eventually lead to serious problems including heart disease, stroke or even death.

Delegates at the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress heard today about a study at Dr. Anderson's lab, led by student researcher Vincent Lee. The key ingredients: breakfast sandwiches and a group of healthy, non-smoking university students.

Fats can build up in your arteries over decades. One important gauge of how "happy" your arteries feel is how much blood flow can increase in your arm in response to its brief interruption – measured as VTI (velocity time integral). You can measure VTI with doppler ultrasound at rest and then after a blood pressure cuff been inflated.

"VTI tells us how much blood flow you can you get in your arm," says Dr. Anderson. The higher the better, which means the small vessels can dilate to capacity, and the blood vessel hormones are working well.

So what would happen to the university students after starting their day with a breakfast of fat champions?

The objective of this study was to assess the acute effects of just one high-fat meal on microvascular function, an indicator of overall vascular (blood vessel) health.

The students were studied twice, once on a day they had no breakfast, and once on a day when they consumed two commercially available breakfast sandwiches, total of 900 calories and 50 g of fat. Two hours after eating the sandwiches, their VTI had decreased by 15-20 per cent, reports Dr. Anderson.

From just one isolated meal, the results are temporary. But the study shows that such a high-fat offering can do more harm, and do it more quickly, than people might think.

"I won't say don't ever have a breakfast sandwich," says Dr. Anderson. But enough of a diet like that, and you can see how you can build up fat in the walls of your arteries.

Dr. Anderson is also co-chair of the group that updated the Canadian Lipid Guidelines (on managing and treating high blood cholesterol), presented at the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress.

"This study reminds us that our behaviours are the backbone of preventing heart disease," says Heart and Stroke Foundation spokesperson Dr. Beth Abramson.

"Remember that whether you eat at home or go to a restaurant, you're still in charge of what you eat. So consider all the choices, and try to cut down on saturated and trans fats, calories and sodium. That's one of the keys to decrease your risk of heart disease and stroke."

###The Canadian Cardiovascular Congress 2012 is co-hosted by the Heart and Stroke Foundation and the Canadian Cardiovascular Society.

Statements and conclusions of study authors are solely those of the study authors and do not necessarily reflect Foundation or CCS policy or position. The Heart and Stroke Foundation and the Canadian Cardiovascular Society make no representation or warranty as to their accuracy or reliability.

The Heart and Stroke Foundation (heartandstroke.ca), a volunteer-based health charity, leads in eliminating heart disease and stroke and reducing their impact through the advancement of research and its application, the promotion of healthy living and advocacy.

Healthy lives free of heart disease and stroke. Together we will make it happen.

For more information and/or interviews, contact the CCC 2012 MEDIA OFFICE AT 416-585-3781 (Oct 28-31)

OR Diane Hargrave Public Relations
416-467-9954 ext. 104
dhprbks@interlog.com

Congress information and media registration is at www.cardiocongress.org

After October 31, 2012 contact: Jane-Diane Fraser
Heart and Stroke Foundation
(613) 569-4361 ext 273
jfraser@hsf.ca

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

How does the brain measure time?

2012-10-31

Researchers at the University of Minnesota's Center for Magnetic Resonance Research (CMRR) have found a small population of neurons that is involved in measuring time, which is a process that has traditionally been difficult to study in the lab. In the study, which is published October 30 in the open access journal PLOS Biology, the researchers developed a task in which monkeys could only rely on their internal sense of the passage of time. Their task design eliminated all external cues which could have served as "clocks". The monkeys were trained to move their eyes ...

Import of proteins into chloroplasts is differentially regulated by age

2012-10-31

New research has found that the transport of proteins into chloroplasts in plants is differentially regulated by the age of the chloroplast; upturning the previously accepted notion that this process is age-independent or only globally up- or down- regulated for all proteins. The research, led by Dr. Hsou-min Li, a Research Fellow from the Institute of Molecular Biology, Academia Sinica of Taiwan, is published October 30 in the open access journal PLOS Biology. It's long been known that gene expression changes with age, for example, some genes are expressed in young ...

Agriculture & food production contribute up to 29 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions

2012-10-31

COPENHAGEN (31 October, 2012)—Feeding the world releases up to 17,000 megatonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually, according to a new analysis released today by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). But while the emissions "footprint" of food production needs to be reduced, a companion policy brief by CCAFS lays out how climate change will require a complete recalibration of where specific crops are grown and livestock are raised. Together, Climate Change and Food Systems (published in the 2012 Annual Review ...

Flavor and texture alter how full we expect a food to makes us feel

2012-10-31

Low calorie foods may help people lose weight but there is often a problem that people using them do not feel full. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal Flavour shows that subtle manipulations of texture and creamy flavour can increase the expectation that a fruit yoghurt drink will be filling and suppress hunger regardless of actual calorific content. There is a currently a debate about satiety, how full low calorie foods and drinks make people feel and for how long, and whether or not they actually make people eat or drink more because the ...

Sizing up biomass from space

2012-10-31

The biomass stored in forests is thought to play a critical role in mitigating the catastrophic effects of global climate change. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal Carbon Balance and Management has used Lidar data collected by the Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) aboard the Ice Cloud and Elevation Satellite (ICESat) to accurately measure the biomass of California. When the ICESat2 is launched in 2016 this method will be able to monitor biomass and other global data changes. As part of the global carbon cycle it is thought that global ...

Couple of weekly portions of oily fish can help ward off stroke

2012-10-31

Eating at least two servings of oily fish a week is moderately but significantly associated with a reduced risk of stroke, finds a study published on bmj.com today. But taking fish oil supplements doesn't seem to have the same effect, say the researchers. Regular consumption of fish and long chain omega 3 fatty acids has been linked with a reduced risk of coronary heart disease and current guidelines recommend eating at least two portions of fish a week, preferably oily fish like mackerel and sardines. But evidence supporting a similar benefit for stroke remains unclear. So ...

Drug offers new pain management therapy for diabetics

2012-10-31

A study from the University of Calgary's Hotchkiss Brain Institute shows there is evidence to support a new drug therapy called nabilone to treat diabetic neuropathy, or nerve pain. Researchers enrolled 60 patients with diabetic neuropathy in a 12-week placebo controlled clinical study. At the end of the study, patients reported less pain and an improvement in sleep and anxiety when taking nabilone as compared to the placebo. "This is a good option to help treat nerve pain due to diabetes, with very few side effects," says Dr. Cory Toth, a neurologist and the study's ...

9 colorful and endangered tree-dwelling tarantulas discovered in Brazil

2012-10-31

Arboreal tarantulas are known from a few tropical places in Asia, Africa, South and Central America and the Caribbean. These tarantulas generally have a lighter build, thinner bodies and longer legs, better suited for their habitat. They have increased surface area at the ends of their legs, allowing them to better climb different surfaces, while their light build makes them more agile. Their core area is the Amazon, from where most of the species are known and normally very common, living in the jungle or even in house's surroundings. Now, nine new species were described ...

'Cause my hair is curly

2012-10-31

In 1987, a domestic cat rescued from a shelter in Montana, USA surprisingly gave birth to a curly-haired kitten. The kitten ended up mating with a Persian male and giving birth to a mixture of curly-haired and normal-haired kittens, which strongly suggested that the mutation in the rescued cat was dominant in nature: its presence on one of the two copies of the gene involved is sufficient to cause cats to have curly hair. The curly-haired kittens were attractive and were soon recognized as a new breed: the Selkirk Rex. There are currently registered Selkirk Rex ...

ASTRO: Deviating from radiation protocols increases risk of treatment failure and death

2012-10-31

PHILADELPHIA--Implementing measures to ensure radiation therapy protocols are followed not only decreases deviations, but it can also improve overall survival in cancer patients, Thomas Jefferson University Hospital researchers suggest in a first-of-its kind study presented during a plenary session at the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) 54th Annual Meeting in Boston. Researchers from the Department of Radiation Oncology at Jefferson analyzed radiation therapy protocols, quality assurance (QA) measures and patient outcomes in eight, large clinical trials ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

The Lancet: New weight loss pill leads to greater blood sugar control and weight loss for people with diabetes than current oral GLP-1, phase 3 trial finds