Eating takeout food too often may increase cardiovascular disease risk

• There appears to be an association between diets high in takeout food and systemic inflammation that underlies much cardiovascular disease, according to a new study.
• A study of over eight thousand people found that those who eat greater amounts of takeout food are likely to have various elevated risk factors for heart disease.
• There are ways to reduce some risks associated with takeout food, and ways to manage healthier home-cooked meals, even in today’s fast-paced world, experts say.

A new study, published in Food Science & Nutrition, finds a correlation between the amount of takeout food a person consumes and their likelihood of developing chronic low-level inflammation, a key driver of cardiovascular pathology.

Deaths from cardiovascular disease and the consumption of takeout foods are both on the rise, and while that does not prove a causal relationship, the study explores whether there is a connection between the two.

The study tracked degrees of systemic inflammation according to the Dietary Inflammatory Index (DII), a scale that quantifies the risk of inflammation related to the intake of specific dietary substances.

The authors analyzed a decade of cross-sectional data from 8,556 participants in the 2009 to 2018 U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).

Participants in the survey were interviewed in their homes, and also visited a mobile examination center, where they recalled their food intake, received cardiometabolic health assessments, and had blood collected.

This analysis sought to identify relationships between participants’ consumption of takeout food, their DII scores, and their assessed cardiometabolic risk.

There were three major takeaways from the analysis:

1. higher takeout food consumption aligned with higher adjusted DII scores — higher DII scores were also associated with increased mortality
2. a higher level of takeout food consumption corresponded to an unfavorable cardiometabolic profile consisting of lower HDL, as well as higher triglycerides, fasting glucose, serum insulin, and insulin resistance
3. with a higher level of takeout food consumption, there was a trend toward higher mortality rates, though no statistically significant association was observed between takeout food by itself and all-cause or heart disease mortality.