Living near fast food restaurants may up stroke risk

New York, February 20: Fast food is so hazardous to human health that even living in neighborhoods where fast food restaurants are plentiful could raise an individual’s risk of having a stroke, warns a new study.

Researchers at the University of Michigan have found that living in an area full of fast food joints may be dangerous for human brain, possibly putting a person at greater risk for stroke.

According to the researchers, the number of fast food outlets in an area is linked to the number of strokes among people living in that area.

To reach their findings, lead researcher Dr. Lewis B. Morgenstern from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and colleagues focused on people living in a Texas county with a high density of fast food joints.

Dr. Morgenstern’s team found that the risk of stroke was significantly higher for those who were living in areas with 33 eateries or more. Furthermore, for each additional fast food outlet in an area, the chance for a potentially deadly stroke increased by 1 percent.

"The association suggested that the risk of stroke in a neighborhood increased by 1 percent for every fast-food restaurant," the authors said.

In the Texas region the researchers studied, Nueces County, Dr. Morgenstern and colleagues counted 1,247 strokes caused by blood clots from January 2000 through June 2003. The county has 262 fast food restaurants.

They found a 13 percent increase in ischemic strokes, a condition in which a blood vessel leading to the brain becomes blocked, in areas with the largest numbers of fast food restaurants.

However, the authors of the latest research cautioned that their findings are purely associative and do not prove living near fast-food restaurants raises the risk of stroke.

"I can't tell you that anybody who had a stroke in this study has ever had a burger in their lives," Morgenstern said. "But I can tell you that these neighborhoods on the whole have factors that increase the risk of stroke."

The findings were presented at the International Stroke Conference in San Diego on Thursday.

A stroke is the sudden death of brain cells in a localized area due to inadequate blood flow. The condition occurs when blood flow is interrupted to part of the brain. More than 700,000 cases of stroke happen every year in the United States, and most of them are the result of blood clots, the researchers said.

Stroke is the third leading cause of death in the United States after heart disease and cancerdefine. According to the latest estimates of the CDC, about 780,000 people in the country will have strokes this year, and nearly 150,000 people will die of it. The figures show that the condition would leave 15 percent to 30 percent of survivors permanently disabled.