An Interesting Proposal For Fast Food Restaurants!

Health experts have long regarded fast food as unhealthy because its high salt and high fat contents are responsible for causing regular patrons of fast food restaurants become overweight and obese.

As we are all aware, overweight or obesity is the root of many other complications including high cholesterol, Type-2 diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and stroke. Therefore, many fast food restaurants have already started to alter their recipes making them looked “less unhealthy”. For example, some have lowered the salt contents while others might add in more vegetables.

Lately, health professionals had proposed an interesting idea to the fast food restaurants. Researchers from the National Heart and Lung Institute at the Imperial College London suggested in the April 2010’s issue of the American Journal of Cardiology that fast food restaurants should give away free cholesterol-busting statins drugs together with their burgers and fries to their customers as a way to offset the possible heart disease risks caused by the food.

Statins, a family of cholesterol-lowering medications including Crestor and Lipitor, are currently available only by prescription. They have been famous of its ability to lower the amount of unhealthy LDL cholesterol (bad cholesterol) in the blood. Numerous studies have also shown that statins are very effective in preventing a heart attack.

According to the researchers, taking a statin tablet could help reduce the increased risk of developing heart disease because of the high fat content in a medium-sized cheeseburger and a small milkshake.

I am sure many of us would not find the new idea convincing. Even some health professionals are skeptical about the proposal and they caution that one should not take the suggestion literally.

In defending their proposal, the researchers used car seat belt as metaphor. They argued that people are advised to fasten their seat belts while traveling in car because of the increased risks to their health when driving or sitting in a car. Likewise, some people do eat unhealthily so they should be given some drugs to offset the possible bad effects.

Nevertheless, they did admit that statins could not eliminate all the unhealthy effects of burgers and fries. Therefore, the best way to stay healthy is still to avoid fatty food.