That includes French fries, potato chips
and hash browns.
It may be the heated vegetable fats that
are to blame. Dr. Bruce Holub of the University of Guelph often assigned
students to collect frying fat from fast-food restaurants to feed to rats that
promptly died.
The study says there’s nothing wrong
with potatoes. It’s the frying that increases health risks.
The United States potato industry
countered that the study is misleading because it involved only people with osteoarthritis.
"Fried potatoes consumption is
increasing worldwide," warned Dr. Nicola Veronese, lead author of the
study and a scientist at the National Research Council in Padova, Italy.
Veronese and his colleagues have been
tracking 4,440 people aged 45 to 79 over a period of eight years to study
osteoarthritis.
This research team decided to
momentarily set aside the main issue of osteoarthritis and look at
participants' consumption of potatoes.
Even though most of us may have assumed
that fried potatoes could be unhealthy for us, there is "very
limited" scientific data on this issue, Veronese said.
Age or sex of participants did not
influence the result, but the data showed men were more likely than women and
younger participants were more likely than older participants to enjoy the
fried food.
The study is observational, meaning the
researchers simply tracked the behavior of a group of people and found an
association between one behavior -- eating fried potatoes -- and another factor
-- early death.
Because it is an observational study,
Veronese and his co-authors note it cannot be said that eating fried potatoes
directly causes an early mortality -- it would require more research to draw
such a firm conclusion.
"Even if it is an observational
study, we believe that the cooking oil, rich in trans-fat, is an important
factor in explaining mortality in those eating more potatoes," said
Veronese.
Yet, he also added that "other
important factors," including obesity, a sedentary lifestyle and use of
high quantities of salt might also play a role in the early death of those
eating two or more portions of fried potatoes each week.
National Potato Council chief executive
officer John Keeling, noting that the study was for osteoarthritis and not the
general populations, said potatoes are a good food.
He said a medium-sized potato is 110
calories, has no fat, no sodium, no cholesterol, and provides nearly a third of
the daily vitamin C requirement with more potassium than a banana.
"How the potato is prepared will
impact the calorie, fat and sodium content," said Keeling, however the
basic nutrients remain "no matter how it is prepared."
Based on the data in the study, Keeling
said, "it is very much a stretch to brand fried potatoes, or any other
form of potato, as unhealthy."
