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Some fried foods 'may not increase heart disease risk'
January 25, 2012
Heart experts have advised people not to reach for the frying pan, despite research finding no link between eating fried foods and heart disease.
Eating food fried in olive or sunflower oil does not appear to be associated with an increased risk of heart disease or untimely death, scientists have found.
Spanish researchers studied the cooking methods of 40,757 adults, none of whom had heart disease at the start of the 11-year study.
They found no association between eating fried food and the risk of heart disease or premature death.
However, the study was conducted in the Mediterranean, where the most commonly used fats for frying are olive and sunflower oil.
The researchers, whose findings are published in the British Medical Journal, therefore pointed out that the results may differ in countries where other types of fat are used.
Victoria Taylor, senior heart health dietician at the British Heart Foundation, urged people not to reach for the frying pan.
She observed: "Our diet in the UK will differ from Spain, so we cannot say that this result would be the same for us too.
"We currently recommend swapping saturated fats like butter, lard or palm oil for unsaturated fats as a way of keeping your cholesterol down, and this study gives further cause to make that switch."
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