‘Western’ diet grows risk of heart attack by 30%

TYPICALLY “western” diets that include a lot of fried food, salty snacks and meat contribute almost a third of the heart attack risk around the world, a study has found.

Researchers rated the eating habits of about 16,000 people in 52 countries, including almost 6,000 who had suffered heart attacks. They found poor diet could be to blame for 30% of the heart disease risk in any population. Participants had been enrolled in the Interheart study, a major worldwide probe of heart attack risk.

A team led by Professor Salim Yusuf, director of the Population Health Research Institute in Ontario, Canada, compared 5,761 heart attack cases with 10,646 people with no history of heart disease.