Chomping on 'fried chicken' regularly may give you a heart attack

If you love gorging on buttery and fried food, it's time to take a hike as a new study suggests that consuming Southern diet regularly, like fried chicken, gravy-smothered liver, buttered rolls etc, could raise the risk of heart attack.

In the study, the researchers compared the dietary habits of more than 17,000 white and African-American adults in different regions of the United States, and found that people who regularly ate fried foods, fatty foods, eggs, processed meats, such as bacon and ham, organ meats like liver, and sugary drinks were at a higher risk for suffering a heart attack or heart-related death during the next 5.8 years.

People who most often ate foods conforming to the Southern dietary pattern had a 56 percent higher risk of heart disease compared to those who ate it less frequently.

The highest consumers of the Southern diet tended to be male, African-American, those who had not graduated from high school or were residents of southern states.

Lead researcher James M. Shikany of the University of Alabama said that regardless of gender, race, or where people live, if people frequently ate a Southern-style diet they should be aware of the risk of heart disease and try to make some gradual changes to their diet.

Shikany said that people should try cutting down the number of times they eat fried foods or processed meats from every day to three days a week as a start.

The study is published in the journal Circulation.