There May Be A Link Between Type 2 Diabetes And Fast Food..

[LoShiNi]

One of the first serious studies of the effects of fast food on the human body was published in 2001. According to the study, the annual revenues of fast food industry in the United States increased from 6 billion dollars in 1970 to 110 billion dollars in 2000 (Schlosser E., 2001).

Let’s take as an example a study performed in the year 2005 at the Emory University School of Medicine, which showed that McDonald’s sold 100 billion hamburgers worldwide! This data shows how ingrained fast food is in our diets. It turns out that on average, McDonald’s welcomes 68 million visitors in 119 countries every day! It’s no surprise that doctors and scientists around the world show a keen interest in studying possible harmful effects of fast food on human health.

As it turns out, the incidence of type 2 diabetes has increased along with the growing popularity of fast food restaurants. This prompted researchers to study the link between fast food and the development of type 2 diabetes. And the results aren’t so surprising! Based on the Singapore Chinese Health Study, which monitored the diet of 43,000 participants over the course of 5 years, a research team at the University of Minnesota led by Dr. Odegaard with colleagues found that the risk of developing type 2 diabetes increased by 27% in people who ate fast food more than twice a week (Odegaard A.O., 2012).


Interestingly, race wasn’t a significant factor in the results of the study. Another authoritative research was performed at Boston University in partnership with the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). African-American women participated in this study, which confirmed the link between type 2 diabetes and fast food (Supriya Krishnan, 2010).

In addition to the studies mentioned above, a study of fast food ingredients carried out at the Harvard School of Public Health in 2012 found that fried red meat contributes to the development of type 2 diabetes.


In 2016, a few years after the study, McDonald’s introduced McVeggie burger – a burger without meat. Researchers from the Emory University School of Medicine calculated that if the new vegetarian burger generates the same demand as the one with meat, they will sell 550 million pounds less saturated fats, 1.2 billion pounds less fat in general, 1 billion pounds less meat, and 660 million pounds less proteins, but the nutritional value will remain the same. Let’s hope that this vegetarian trend will actually slow down the increase in the incidence of diabetes and will make for a nice ingredient of fast food!