It's been a rough couple of weeks for Scotland, huh? First, the country failed to pass a referendum granting it independence from the United Kingdom. And now, eating a beloved national snack may cause serious health problems. Scotland just can't catch a break, can it?
A recent study published in the Scottish Medical Journal has found that eating a deep-fried Mars bar, which is exactly what it sounds like, could cause a stroke within minutes because it slows down blood flow to the brain. Well, that certainly takes all of the fun out of chomping down on one of these crispy, greasy, gooey snacks, doesn't it?
Researchers in the Scottish city of Glasgow had 24 volunteers eat a deep-fried Mars bar and then porridge as the control. The researchers used a transcranial Doppler ultrasound to calculate Breath Holding Index as a way of measuring blood flow to the brain. They found that within 90 minutes of eating the deep-fried Mars bar, blood supply to the brain was "modestly" reduced in men, increasing their risk of stroke. However, there was no major change in women, which is interesting because more women suffer strokes than men every year, according to the U.K.'s Office for National Statistics.
The 1200-calorie deep-fried Mars bar was first created at the Carron Fish Bar in Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire in 1992. Since then, it has appeared in many chip shops in Scotland and has been a favorite among tourists. As many as 22 percent of chip shops serve the snack, which the researchers also note has frequently been cited as "all that is wrong with the high-fat, high-sugar Scottish diet." The deep-fried Mars bar got a mention in a 2012 article in The Economist about why Glaswegians die younger than other Britons. The bar is known as one of Scotland's "health-sapping delicacies." Mars, the company behind the Mars bar and other chocolaty favorites like M&M's, Milky Way and 3 Musketeers, even dissociated itself from the deep-fried Mars bar in 2012, making it clear it didn't endorse the product because "deep-frying one of our products would go against our commitment to promoting healthy, active lifestyles," a Mars spokeswoman told The Guardian.
The results of this study also probably don't bode too well for lovers of other deep-fried treats that have shown up at many an American street fair, such as deep-fried Oreos and Twinkies. But then again, no one ever thought any of these foods were good for your health.
