What if in the next few years you could walk into any fast food restaurant order, and get a cholesterol drug with your big mac and french fries? A little insane if I do say so myself!
Researchers from the Imperial College in London have made recent discoveries that if you give a statin (like lipitor) out with each meal ordered at a fast food restaurant that it would cancel out the cholesterol you gain from eating the meal in the first place. This was discovered after doctors studied how heart attacks were increased by a persons fat in take. They then compared this with their research that found certain statins were able to decrease the risk of heart attack. In conclusion they realized that taking a statin with your greasy/fatty meal would be better for your heart.
Today in the United States obesity is a huge issue. About 24 million Americans take statins already to decrease the risk of heart attack so what if the majority of the country started taking them too? It would bring a handful of other issues into light. Researchers say they don't want this to be taken the wrong way and that a statin is not to be used as a "magic pill." Because this may be used as a solution for our country's over consumption of fast food experts say it could actually increase the intake of fast food in the long run and it might just increase our problem with obesity too.
Today in the United States obesity is a huge issue. About 24 million Americans take statins already to decrease the risk of heart attack so what if the majority of the country started taking them too? It would bring a handful of other issues into light. Researchers say they don't want this to be taken the wrong way and that a statin is not to be used as a "magic pill." Because this may be used as a solution for our country's over consumption of fast food experts say it could actually increase the intake of fast food in the long run and it might just increase our problem with obesity too.
Dr. Darrel Francis a key person dealing with this study talks a little bit about the idea on Fox News
They say the drug would cost a little less then seven cents per customer at fast food chains. A clinical trial of this was done on 43,000 participants and was published in The American Journal of Cardiology in August of this year.
Sources
wow.. this is good news. but then again, there will always be people who'd use it the wrong way. I think only people who are in need of it should use it otherwise, you're only getting yourself hooked on more drugs.
ReplyDeleteI'm interested to see if people would actually take a cholesterol pill before eating something unhealthy. Even if these pills were readily available for consumption I'm not so sure that people would care enough. I definitely wouldn't care enough to bother with it.
ReplyDeleteI think the real issues these doctors are trying to get to are using drugs to help individuals stay healthy and making those drugs more readily available. What's more available than right next to the extra condiments and plastic silverware? And if this were to catch on, I could only imagine other places where such drugs could pop up. But could this create a society where people believe they don’t have to worry about the consequences for their actions; all they have to do is pop in another pill and they will be fine. I disagree with Darrel Francis’ high believe in the people in our society. A person is smart, people are stupid. Even if a person is willing to give enough time to actually take the pill, they will most certainly not give the time to actually know what it does. Although this would be a great idea, if it caused more harm than good, maybe we should wait until our society has moved to a point in which they would be ready for this kind of change.
ReplyDeleteP.S. WHAT is with the women at the end of the video? Did you know that she freaked out like that all because McDonalds wouldn’t serve her chicken nuggets so early in the morning?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlbV-NPT56s
At first glance this seems like a great idea, but I'm with Jake and feel that most people would just not bother with it.
ReplyDeleteThis could be a great solution to all of the issues that people have with eating unhealthy food. However, it could cause all kinds of other issues with drug abuse and health risks. There are always side effects to be aware of when taking any type of drug. It seems as though it would be difficult to make sure the customers are aware of those side effects.
ReplyDeleteMcDonald’s operates more playgrounds than any other private entity in the United States. It is one of the nation’s largest distributors of toys. A survey of American schoolchildren found that 96 percent could identify Ronald McDonald. The only fictional character with a higher degree of recognition was Santa Claus. Introducing any sort of pills, basically as a condiment, into an industry where a happy meal is the most efficient marketing tool to create a life long customer is a horrible idea. The last thing we should embrace is the reliance of a pill to survive through lunch without a heart attack.
ReplyDeleteI think it's completely ignorant that someone would come up with the idea that giving a cholesterol pill with a big mac would make eating the big mac ok. It's encouraging bad behavior with drugs.It's encouraging one bad habit with another. If kids grew up with this option i think it would just make them more susceptible to taking drugs in the future and thinking that junk food is ok to be consuming on a regular basis.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Ashley - moderation is the key here, rather than justifying the consumption of foods devoid in nutritional value with drugs.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Angie, I think this is just further encouraging bad eating habits.
ReplyDeleteI think its a funny concept but I hope it never happens in McDonalds. People just need to buy their own so they can pop them whenever, instead of being handed drugs by a fast food restaurant.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait till we find out that the statins cause some other horrible ailment to our livers so in addition to the burger and cholesterol inhibitor, we need to take another drug to curb those side effects. Of course, the drug that negates the unwanted effects of the statins, will naturally cause our eyes to bleed. To stop the eye bleeding we'll need to take something that's really good at stopping ocular hemorrhaging but will, without exception, raise our cholesterol.
ReplyDeleteI'm siding with most people here saying this will just increase consumption of fast food. Why is it always another drug in a pill. I think McDonalds should just give a damn tredmill with each purchase instead, that would probably be healthier than a statin in the long term.
ReplyDeleteSo, rather than teach people to eat healthy we're going to just give them pills? This is like not teaching spelling and giving people spell check, just an awful idea.
ReplyDelete