White bread, rice, and other carbs boost heart disease risk in women

Women who eat more white bread, white rice, pizza, and other carbohydrate-rich foods that cause blood sugar to spike are more than twice as likely to develop heart disease than women who eat less of those foods, a new study suggests.

In the study, published recently in the Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers analyzed data from a large, ongoing study of nutrition and cancer risk. The researchers surveyed roughly 48,000 Italian adults about their diets in detail, noting the amount and types of carbohydrates they consumed on a regular basis. Not surprisingly - the study was conducted in Italy, after all - bread, pasta, and pizza were common sources of carbs. During the eight-year follow-up period, 463 people in the study - 65 percent of them men - experienced heart problems (including heart attacks), had angioplasty or bypass surgery, or died of heart-disease-related causes. The women who reported eating the most carbohydrates had twice the risk of developing heart disease as their counterparts who consumed the fewest carbs.
When the researchers broke the carbs into high and low glycemic index categories, the increased risk was even more apparent: Women who ate the most high glycemic foods had about 2.25 times the risk of developing heart disease than women who consumed the fewest.

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