If you haven’t seen the movie Supersize Me, PLEASE go out and rent or buy it today (it’s really funny and entertaining as well as eye opening). In a nutshell, filmmaker Morgan Surplock becomes a human guinea pig who eats nothing but McDonald’s for 30 days straight. At one point in the film, one of the doctors who is tracking his body’s reactions advises him to call it quits after tests reveal potentially serious liver problems.
Morgan’s precarious state in such a short period of time seemed to surprise the doctor in the film, but my experience, it was par for the course. Throughout my career, I’ve seen many clients with cirrhosis of the liver (the twelfth leading cause of death by disease) who never touched alcohol and had no history of hepatitis (the typical causes). And now, a few new human and animal studies confirm the diet/liver disease link.
In a recent Sweden trial, researchers put 18 healthy, slim adults on a fast food diet and restricted their physical activity for one month. The groups gained 12 pounds on average, and their liver enzymes (a key indicator of liver damage) spiked within one week.
Scientists from Saint Louis University put inactive mice on a fast food diet high in unhealthy fats and high-fructose corn syrup (the man-made sweetener used in most sodas). Within four weeks, the mice had increased liver enzymes and the beginnings of glucose intolerance (a precursor to type II diabetes).
When I first became a nutritionist, the number of athletes I’d meet who were self-described fast food junkies shocked me. To this day, I meet all types of athletes who have a “no biggie” attitude about fast food. They’ll say things like, “Well, I burn it off” or “I work out a lot so I can afford it.” It may be true that many athletes can “get away” with eating fast food without gaining weight, simply by burning off the calories. But, regardless of your ability to maintain your waistline, you can’t escape the “secondary effects” of fast food—on your liver, as well as your digestive system, arteries, and other body parts.
Here’s the deal: before you burn those fast food calories off, you have to digest the food, absorb it from your digestive tract into your blood stream, where it circulates through your system, and must get processed by your brain, liver and other systems—in other words, burning off those calories is only one piece of the puzzle.
I wish I could invent a device that would instantly assess the state of your body so you could check out "what’s going on in there" at any given moment (especially after meals). My dream device would measure things like:
-The state of your immune system
-If and where inflammation is occurring
-The adequacy of your vitamin, mineral, and antioxidant status
-How clear your arteries are
-How well your body is healing, repairing and regenerating itself, and
-How well each of your organs is functioning
Wouldn’t that be amazing? I bet this kind of body “report card” would read much differently after a fast food meal.
Did you know that within three hours of eating a high saturated fat meal (think cheeseburger), the body’s ability to open up blood vessels is significantly reduced (that means poor circulation), and within six hours, the protective effects of “good” HDL cholesterol are lessened? That’s just ONE meal!
So, do you ever eat fast food? If so, how often? If it’s on your “can’t live without” list, I recommend restricting to days you don’t train or perform (or at least try not to eat it within the few hours before or after a game or competition).
P.S. If you watch Supersize Me, be sure to check out The Smoking Fry segment on the special features!