Pass the fried catfish - but only once in a while

Photo: Patrick Woodward via Flickr

This isn't the first time we've seen the warning that Southern diets are linked to stroke risk.

Being a born Southerner - and a lover of fried catfish, fried hush puppies and fried okra - it's hard to admit that the food I grew up on was perhaps not the healthiest. These days, living in the Midwest, I am sparing in consumption of these things.

Check out the latest article that Southern-style diet is least healthy:

Individuals eating foods typical to the Southern region -- think fried chicken, fried okra, sweet tea, buttered biscuits, and lots of gravy -- showed a 56% increase in cardiovascular disease, compared with those rarely eating such foods, in the national, population-based, observational Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) trial.

Although no one expected that a diet rich in saturated fats, carbohydrates, and salt would appear healthy, the study did contain one surprise, said researcher James Shikany, DrPH, of the University of Alabama at Birmingham: the Southern-style diet seemed more deleterious in terms of heart health than other eating patterns widely considered to be unhealthy, including a diet largely comprised of "convenience" foods such as pizza and Mexican and Chinese take-out and a "sweets"-based diet characterized by regular consumption of high-sugar breakfast foods, candy, and desserts. ...

"Of the five dietary patterns we looked at, the Southern-style diet was the only one that showed an association with heart disease, either positive or negative," Shikany told MedPage Today.