Breakfast sandwich enthusiasts listen up — your cheap meal on the run could damage your heart.
Within two hours of eating two breakfast sandwiches totalling 900 calories and 50 grams of fat, a study conducted at the University of Calgary found participants’ blood flow decreased 15-20 per cent.
“I was interested to find out if one meal could have an acute affect on your heart,” said Vincent Lee, who led the study.
Lee, now in his first year of medical school at the University of Alberta, conducted the study as part of his four-year health sciences degree.
“I didn’t use breakfast sandwiches for any particular reason. They simply fit the criteria . . . they are high in fat, commercially available, and popular,” he said.
Lee found when 20 healthy university students consumed the sausage, egg, and cheese on a white bun, it had an immediate effect.
Reporting by Jenny Kleininger
Produced by Fraser Tripp
The students averaged 22-23 years old and were classified as “healthy” by having no pre-existing heart conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and being non-smokers.
“These are all known risk factors of heart disease,” Lee said.
“I’m honestly a little scared since I have a breakfast sandwich most days of the week. I’m a little worried by my health right now,” Richard Huneault, a Carleton University student said after just finishing a breakfast sandwich.
Huneault said he eats breakfast sandwiches because of their convenience.
“Most mornings I wake up too late or too tired to get myself breakfast so I count on McDonald’s,” Huneault said.
“I don’t eat meat, so that’s a part of it. But they never seemed appealing to me, they just seemed really unhealthy. I’m not surprised by the study,” said fellow student Hannah Pendergast.
Myles Pelley, another Carleton University student, said he doesn’t eat breakfast sandwiches often.
“I’m usually eating actual food,” he said.
But when he does opt for one, he said he doesn’t think it has much of an impact on his health.
“Obviously your body has a way to balance itself. Yeah your body goes through crap to devour that thing, but eventually it balances itself out. I’m not dead yet, so I must be doing something right,” he said.
Hannah Barss, a second-year Carleton student, is also skeptical of Lee’s study.
“Correlation does not imply causation,” she said.
Although she said studies are necessary, reporting on them as soon as they’re released isn’t ideal because there’s always evidence to argue for and against.
“They’ll be a study in the newspaper one week saying wine causes cancer and the next that wine doesn’t cause cancer. Maybe I’m just saying be careful what you read,” she said.
Lee said all his study is claiming is that regularly consuming foods with high fat content now could affect you later.
“What I’m saying is that a lifetime of high-fat meals contribute to heart disease and that my study suggests that every meal we choose makes a difference to our health,” Lee said via email.
Lee, a student himself, said he doesn’t eat out much. But when he does, it’s not breakfast sandwiches.
