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Southern diets are delicious. They’re full of fried food, butter, salt, fat, and sweet tea.
So it’s no surprise at all that science has finally found that a Southern diet is terrible for your heart.
A new study by the University of Alabama found that people who consume a Southern diet—that is, fried, fatty foods, processed meats, organ meats, and lots of suger—put themselves at a 56 percent higher risk of heart disease than those with less extreme diets.
People found that people who eat these diets are most likely to be male, African-American, undereducated (not graduated from high school) and are most likely to be living In Southern states (North and South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Georgia).
But that doesn’t meant these are the only people who are in danger.
Participants in the study, all 17.000 of them, were given a physical and asked how much and how often they consumed certain foods.
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There were five categories, including: convenience based foods (takeout), plant-based food (fruits and veggies), sweets (anything sugary), and and Southern food.
No participants had documented heart problems, and were tracked for six years.
At the end of the study, those with Southern diets had a 56% higher risk of heart attack.
This isn’t the first study to measure the health risks of this diet. There’s a reason that the South is known as the “stroke belt,” and one study from the same researchers found a 41 percent higher stroke risk in people who consumed six Southern meals per week.
What’s the takeaway? It’s pretty easy. Cut down your fried, processed meats and put in more fruits and veggies, and you’ll probably end up with a lower risk of heart attack and stroke.
What do you think of this study? Would you give up fried food if it meant cutting your risk of heart attack?
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