Scotland’s Mars Bar calorie snack found to trigger stroke
30 Sep 2014
Scotland's Mars Bar calorie snack, dripping with sugar and covered in fat has long been known to be unhealthy and now doctors have finally nailed it as helping to trigger a stroke.
According to doctors, the 1,200 calorie snack was so fattening that it reduced the supply of blood to the brain.
Scottish researchers warn that a deep-fried Mars Bar could trigger a stroke within minutes of being consumed.
The Glasgow University researchers gave 24 people the chocolate bars coated in batter. They predicted that the chocolate bar would cause a blockage in an artery leading to the brain - also called an ischaemic stroke.
Only 90 minutes later, they noticed a slow down in blood flow to the brain in men.
William Dunn, who performed scans on volunteers, told the Daily Record that the research had show that eating a sugar and fat-laden snack could actually affect blood flow to the brain within minutes.
The reduction in the reactivity of blood vessels in the brain had earlier been linked to an increased stroke risk – but the changes observed by the researchers were modest.
However they did not notice any difference in the blood flow to women's brains.
The researchers used a transcranial Doppler ultrasound to calculate Breath Holding Index as a way to measure blood flow to the brain.
According to commentators the results were interesting as more women suffered strokes than men every year, according to the UK'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 and since then it had appeared in many chip shops in Scotland and had been a favorite among tourists, Mail Online reported.
The snack was served at as many as 22 per cent of chip shops, which the researchers also noted had frequently been cited as "all that is wrong with the high-fat, high-sugar Scottish diet."
A 2012 article in The Economist had a mention of the deep-fried Mars bar about why Glaswegians died younger than other Britons. The bar had come to be known as one of Scotland's "health-sapping delicacies."