Wednesday, December 11, 2019

Eating too much ramen may be linked to higher risk of stroke but not heart attack

The article published on Nutrition Journal on 09/04/2019 explicitly says "The prevalence of ramen restaurants, but not of other restaurant types, positively correlated with stroke mortality in both men and women (r > 0.5). We found no correlation between ramen restaurant prevalence and mortality from acute myocardial infarction." (my italics)

And yet some media such as nextshark.com ("Japanese Ramen Linked to Heart Attack and Stroke Risk, Study Says") or qz.com ("The researchers from Jichi Medical University suspected that ramen, which is high in sodium, might be linked to higher risk of strokes and heart attacks") incorrectly report that the research links ramen with heart attack, technically known as acute myocardial infarction. A heart attack is blockage of the blood vessels to the heart, while stroke is blockage of the vessels to the brain. It's a simple distinction naive people including some journalists are ignorant of. In any case, too much sodium is always bad, although what ingredient or ingredients in ramen are responsible for higher risk of stroke are not directly investigated in this research.