Apr 2, 2024 4 min read

By Nick Jacobs

Due to the higher number of strokes there compared to the rest of the country, PubMed abstract author Lokesh Bathala dubbed the Southeastern part of the United States the Stroke Belt.

​During a two-week stay at the University of Alabama Hospitals, Bathala noted that 57 patients were admitted, and 61% of those admitted had ischemic strokes due to artery blockage or atherosclerosis.

​The states of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia had a stroke average that was about 10% higher than the rest of the country.

​I’m not writing this to scare or to scar you, but both my mom and her dad had life-ending strokes, and I’ve fought high cholesterol my entire life. I’m not a medical expert in this area – that would be a ridiculous exaggeration – but I can tell you a few things that might be interesting to you.

​Just like Big Pharma, Big Agriculture, and Big Tobacco, the big fast-food Industry is positioned to do one thing: make money for their owners and stockholders. It’s their job to grow their business every quarter or face a decline in their stock value.

​There’s no doubt in my mind that, unless you’re one of those lucky individuals with incredibly high HDL (good cholesterol) and low triglycerides, there’s no doubt that you are aware of the fact that a triple cheeseburger stuffed with bacon, a breakfast of sausage, fried eggs, fried potatoes and a buttery biscuit, a triple-fried hamburger, or a platter of fried fish with a side of French fries and hush puppies is probably not healthy for you.

​As a former hospital executive, I used to marvel when, back in the 1980s and 1990s, I would see employees from the radiology department rush outside to the “smoking gazebo” at least once an hour for a cigarette. I mean, they were X-raying people’s lungs all day, and if anyone knew the damage caused by smoking, it was them.

​Here’s the rub: Addiction is a nasty thing that’s not easily beaten, and you better believe that between the incredible investment made in marketing and public relations, there’s a dark side of science that is at play as well. Just like with tobacco, there is the science of food manipulation, where laboratory tests are exploring ways to make these foods as addictive as possible. There is a commitment to manufacturing pathways to create structural changes in your brain.

​This can range from something as innocent as piping the smell of freshly baked bread into the lobby of a restaurant to manipulating the molecules of the food to hit your pleasure centers with just the right amount of salt and sweetness to make you say, “I need that bacon burger and I need it now.”

​Interestingly, the states in the Stroke Belt are famous for their fried foods. Once, when I was interviewing for a job with a company that was based in Memphis, Tenn., my wife warned me during the plane ride that fried catfish would be the chosen meal for my interview. Sure enough, when the main course was served, a pile of fried catfish as tall as my daughter’s Labrador Retriever arrived. When I bit into one of the filets, it was so thoroughly deep-fried it could easily have been a fried tennis shoe.

That night, I almost didn’t get the job because I told the CEO our recipe for fried catfish in Pennsylvania: catch the fish, lay it on a board, clean the fish, then throw it away and eat the board. No one laughed.

Even Eve didn’t follow that food suggestion from God. Just take care of yourself. You are indeed what you eat, and the last thing we need is for Pennsylvania to join the stroke club. Just because it tastes great, it doesn’t mean it’s not going to prematurely kill you.

Nick Jacobs is a Windber resident.