Forget comfort food: Emotional eating may be bad for your heart, say researchers

People who eat as a way of coping with difficult feelings may be more likely to develop cardiovascular disease, French researchers concluded in a study published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology. The study, which involved 1,109 participants from the 10-year STANISLAS follow-up of families, linked emotional eating with cardiovascular problems, with stress contributing to this correlation. Participants’ diets were assessed using the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire. The objective of the study was to observe a possible association between eating behaviors and cardiovascular damage over a period of 13 years. Measures of cardiovascular damage included diastolic dysfunction and carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity, or stiffness of the arteries. Diastolic dysfunction has been associated with a greater likelihood of developing heart failure. In addition, previous studies have suggested stiffness of the arteries may be associated with a higher risk of heart disease and stroke. In the French study, researchers found that emotional eating is associated with a 38% increased risk of diastolic dysfunction and higher pulse wave velocity, thus stiffer arteries. A mediation analysis to try to understand the reasons for this found that the level of stress would explain 32% of the association between this eating behavior and diastolic dysfunction. Read: Podcast: Loneliness is making us physically sick, but social prescribing can treat it Surprisingly, emotional eaters did not consume a particularly high amount of calories. You would expect emotional eaters to consume high-calorie foods, which would lead to cardiovascular problems, but this is not the case. One explanation is that we measured average calorie intake and that emotional eaters may binge when under stress and eat less at other times. This yo-yo pattern can have negative effects on the heart and blood vessels compared to a stable food intake," said Dr Nicolas Girerd, cardiologist at Nancy University Hospital in France and one of the study authors. The authors concluded that efforts to prevent cardiovascular disease should address eating behaviors in addition to nutritional content. "Emotional eaters consume food to satisfy their brain rather than their stomach," said Dr. Girerd. Mindful eating can help break this habit. It means taking the time to eat, alone or with other people, being in the moment and aware of what you are doing, and not being distracted by your phone or the television." Read: The power of touch

Forget comfort food: Emotional eating may be bad for your heart, say researchers

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