Delicious but deadly: Eating fried food is tied to an increased risk of heart disease and stroke, a new study suggests. The risk rises with each additional 4-ounce serving per week, a research team in China found. For the study, the investigators analyzed 19 previously published studies. They combined data from 17 studies, involving more than 560,000 people with nearly 37,000 major cardiovascular events, such as heart attack or stroke. The researchers also used data from six studies, involving more than 750,000 participants and nearly 86,000 deaths over an average of 10 years. The study findings showed that compared with those who ate the lowest amount of fried food per week, those who ate the most had a 28% greater risk of major cardiovascular events, a 22% higher risk of heart disease and a 37% higher risk of heart failure. These risks substantially increased by 3%, 2% and 12%, respectively, with each additional 4-ounce weekly serving, according to Pei Qin, of Shenzhen University Health Science Center, in Guangdong, China, and colleagues. The report was published online Jan. 19 in the journal Heart. How fried foods might increase the development of cardiovascular disease isn’t clear, but several explanations are possible, the study authors noted in a journal news release. Fried foods contain harmful trans fatty acids from the hydrogenated vegetable oils often used to cook them,…  read on >  read on >

Delicious but deadly: Eating fried food is tied to an increased risk of heart disease and stroke, a new study suggests. The risk rises with each additional 4-ounce serving per week, a research team in China found. For the study, the investigators analyzed 19 previously published studies. They combined data from 17 studies, involving more than 560,000 people with nearly 37,000 major cardiovascular events, such as heart attack or stroke. The researchers also used data from six studies, involving more than 750,000 participants and nearly 86,000 deaths over an average of 10 years. The study findings showed that compared with those who ate the lowest amount of fried food per week, those who ate the most had a 28% greater risk of major cardiovascular events, a 22% higher risk of heart disease and a 37% higher risk of heart failure. These risks substantially increased by 3%, 2% and 12%, respectively, with each additional 4-ounce weekly serving, according to Pei Qin, of Shenzhen University Health Science Center, in Guangdong, China, and colleagues. The report was published online Jan. 19 in the journal Heart. How fried foods might increase the development of cardiovascular disease isn’t clear, but several explanations are possible, the study authors noted in a journal news release. Fried foods contain harmful trans fatty acids from the hydrogenated vegetable oils often used to cook them,…  read on >  read on >

Patients with chronic kidney disease who stop using a class of common blood pressure medications may lower their risk for dialysis, but they also raise their odds of cardiovascular disease, a new study finds. The blood pressure medicines in question are called renin-angiotensin system inhibitors (RAS inhibitors), which include both ACE inhibitors and angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs). Not sure if you take one of these drugs? ACE inhibitors typically have “pril” as the last syllable in their name (for example, benazepril, captopril or enalapril) while ARBs typically end in “sartan” (candesartan, losartan and valsartan, among others). All of these medicines are commonly used to treat high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, heart failure and chronic kidney disease, but how safe they are for patients with chronic kidney disease is a matter of debate. “The use of RAS inhibitors in patients with advanced chronic kidney disease is controversial, and many doctors deprescribe them,” study principal investigator Juan Jesus Carrero, professor at the department of medical epidemiology and biostatistics at Karolinska Institute in Sweden, said in an institute news release. “Rather than routinely discontinuing treatment, our results show that the issue is a complex one and that doctors must carefully weigh the protective effects of RAS inhibitors on the cardiovascular system against the potential harms on the kidneys,” Carrero said. According to study first author Dr. Edouard…  read on >  read on >

Rising temperatures caused by climate change are contributing to low diet quality and malnutrition among young children in many parts of the world, researchers say. Warmer temperatures now equal or exceed the impact of traditional causes of child malnutrition and low quality diets, such as poverty, poor sanitation and low levels of education, according to investigators from the University of Vermont. “Certainly, future climate changes have been predicted to affect malnutrition, but it surprised us that higher temperatures are already showing an impact,” study co-author Meredith Niles said in a school news release. She’s an assistant professor of nutrition and food sciences and a fellow at the university’s Gund Institute for Environment. The researchers assessed diet diversity among 107,000 children, 5 years and younger, in 19 countries in Asia, Africa and South America, using three decades of temperature, precipitation, socioeconomic, ecological and geographic data. Of the six regions included in the study — Asia, Central and South America, North, West and Southeast Africa — five had significant temperature-related reductions in young children’s diet diversity. Diet diversity is used to measure diet quality and intake of iron, folic acid, zinc and vitamins A and D — all critical for child development. A lack of such nutrients is a cause of malnutrition, which affects one-third of children younger than 5. On average, children in the study had…  read on >  read on >

Patients with chronic kidney disease who stop using a class of common blood pressure medications may lower their risk for dialysis, but they also raise their odds of cardiovascular disease, a new study finds. The blood pressure medicines in question are called renin-angiotensin system inhibitors (RAS inhibitors), which include both ACE inhibitors and angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs). Not sure if you take one of these drugs? ACE inhibitors typically have “pril” as the last syllable in their name (for example, benazepril, captopril or enalapril) while ARBs typically end in “sartan” (candesartan, losartan and valsartan, among others). All of these medicines are commonly used to treat high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, heart failure and chronic kidney disease, but how safe they are for patients with chronic kidney disease is a matter of debate. “The use of RAS inhibitors in patients with advanced chronic kidney disease is controversial, and many doctors deprescribe them,” study principal investigator Juan Jesus Carrero, professor at the department of medical epidemiology and biostatistics at Karolinska Institute in Sweden, said in an institute news release. “Rather than routinely discontinuing treatment, our results show that the issue is a complex one and that doctors must carefully weigh the protective effects of RAS inhibitors on the cardiovascular system against the potential harms on the kidneys,” Carrero said. According to study first author Dr. Edouard…  read on >  read on >