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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMan suffers heart attack while eating at Heart Attack Grill
Millions of Americans watch what they eat. But one Las Vegas man has painfully discovered that where you eat can have a big impact on your health as well. In a story almost too bizarre to be true, a man suffered a heart attack after eating a "triple bypass burger" at the Heart Attack Grill in downtown Las Vegas, local affiliate Fox5 reports.
As comically tragic as that may sound, no one can sue the restaurant for not issuing fair warning. Its website proudly proclaims the menu offers, "Taste Worth Dying For!" (Fortunately, the man in question survived his attack.)
Still, it was the first actual known cardiac incident at the Heart Attack Grill. "He was having the sweats and shaking," "Nurse" Bridgett, who was working at the restaurant at the time of the incident, told Fox5. (Employees at the restaurant are given fake medical titles, including the establishment's owner, "Doctor" Jon Basso.)
"I actually felt horrible for the gentleman because the tourists were taking photos of him as if it were some type of stunt. Even with our own morbid sense of humor, we would never pull a stunt like that," Bosso told Fox5. "He was sweating, suffering. Anyone with an ounce of compassion would've felt for him."
Apparently there is video as well: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/man-suffers-heart-attack-while-eating-heart-attack-185717972.html
Blue Owl
(50,356 posts)n/t
yesphan
(1,587 posts)bless his, uh, heart.
Initech
(100,068 posts)quinnox
(20,600 posts)That is funny in a black humor way, and ironic. At least the guy survived his burger experience.
physioex
(6,890 posts)Their fries are deep fried in lard....
Richardo
(38,391 posts)Self-referential humor always cracks me up.
WingDinger
(3,690 posts)RebelOne
(30,947 posts)Champion Jack
(5,378 posts)whistler162
(11,155 posts)we think the rest of the nations ion the world are idiots.
We don't want to look at our selves and realize we are just as idiotic as the next country.
Ikonoklast
(23,973 posts)You can't buy that kind of publicity.
physioex
(6,890 posts)This might bring in more customers.
physioex
(6,890 posts)Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)EOTE
(13,409 posts)Errr, I'm sorry, I meant to say "In a story I can't believe doesn't happen far more frequently."
Nuclear Unicorn
(19,497 posts)gratuitous
(82,849 posts)Oh, because the guy had the bad taste to suffer his cardiac episode right there in the restaurant instead of somewhere else. Very gauche.
On the other hand, perhaps "Nurse" Bridgett will reconsider her career choices and decide to work in an establishment not quite so celebratory of its inimical effects on its patrons. Her concern makes me think she could actually be a nice person who doesn't really want people to have heart attacks.
dmallind
(10,437 posts)And given the obesity impact on longevity is no more than a handful of years in almost all subgroups, that's not really a surprise.
But holier than thouism reigns as usual here.
I'm pretty sure I can find cases of people having heart attacks while eating salad. What would that show? Oh yeah....bugger all. Just like this.
Liquorice
(2,066 posts)physioex
(6,890 posts)kwassa
(23,340 posts)It has nothing to do with holiness, it has a great deal to do with intelligent, rational decisions about food consumption. I once heard that atheists were very rational people.
People don't get heart attacks from eating too much salad. A lifetime of eating saturated fat, trans fat, getting no exercise and being overweight .... a different outcome.
dionysus
(26,467 posts)this guy however...
Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)meegbear
(25,438 posts)I may check this place out ... yes, morbid curiosity.
Motown_Johnny
(22,308 posts)They would fit in well and just might save a life someday.
Ikonoklast
(23,973 posts)At least no one can say they aren't telling the truth about the cuisine.
They have a crash cart on premises that doubles as a dessert caddy.
LiberalEsto
(22,845 posts)Inquiring minds want to know.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)Gold Metal Flake
(13,805 posts)This might hurt Bosso's bottom line.
no_hypocrisy
(46,094 posts)Don't know it but got the feeling he will.
Liquorice
(2,066 posts)restaurant to be funny... For some reason eating a triple bypass burger and flatline fries is hilarious, but I bet they wouldn't think it was funny to eat a cancer sandwich and Insulin Shot cake.
Just something I've been thinking about since I heard the story...
Evoman
(8,040 posts)or smoked meat.
Hell, I HAVE cancer and I find it funny. But I'm horribly morbid, so there you go.
jsmirman
(4,507 posts)As an animal advocate, you know what I'm absolutely positive isn't fucking funny? Gluttony.
The American food industry is bad enough. It's just awesome that people don't give a flip that the animals that go into the food on their plates live the entirety of their short lives in miserable conditions that no one on this board (including myself) could handle over a long afternoon without going insane.
Our food system is awash in cruelty, it doesn't give a rip about your health or your safety (deplorably unsanitary conditions, diseased and mistreated pigs, cows, and chickens ending up on your table), and it is destroying our environment (harmful waste poisoning soil and water systems). Things have gotten so out of control that the Minnesota Pork Producers Association has to (help) fund University of Minnesota researchers who are trying to figure out how to deal with the slushy pink pig waste foam that forms atop manure lagoons and congeals under the eaves of factory barn roofs and THEN EXPLODES ENTIRE BARNS when the trapped methane gases have had enough.
And if you're not absolutely sure where your food came from, it came from one of these exemplars of sociopathic capitalism, corporate greed, and the heck with the consumer economics. By 2007, the top four U.S. pork producers all practitioners of factory farming already controlled 66% of the entire market for pig products. A more recent authoritative study on the cattle industry found four companies control more than three quarters of that market. Three companies control more than half the poultry market, and the top ten producers' market share exceeds 75%.
So when people think it's great or hilarious to needlessly consume animals that suffered to feed them, it makes me pretty angry.
Liquorice
(2,066 posts)of animals in the meat-eating culture is horrendous. But far too many people enjoy eating meat, and I don't see that ever changing. One thing that might make a big difference in the future is meat grown in laboratories (cultured meat). If you've never heard of it before, I know it might sounds crazy and meat-eaters claim they'll never eat it, but I think eventually people will eat meat that never involved the killing of an animal. Cultured meat would also have no negative impact on our environment and would dramatically change our culture entirely.
Here are a couple of interesting articles about it in case you haven't heard about it yet:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2087837/Test-tube-meat-reality-year-scientists-work-make-profitable.html
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2012/01/peta-offers-1-million-for-successful-lab-grown-chicken/
jsmirman
(4,507 posts)I'd like to at a minimum speak against. And I say that as one who was a glutton.
But back to that in a second.
I have, indeed, heard about this cultured meat stuff, as animal advocacy issues occupy a very large part of my days/consciousness. I still care about other important stuff like, you know, people, but this is a fight I intend to be a soldier in one way or another. There will be arguments back and forth about cultured meat, and people are certainly going to see this all going down the path that takes us to Firefly (the show) where "real food" doesn't exist any longer. For me, I think, sure, it's worth exploring. Removing the damage to our environment is very important to me. There's some places out west, I think, as well, that are experimenting with shrimp farms that are not ecologically harmful. Many animal advocates would disagree with me on this - and I may very well come to think I'm wrong, but honestly, so long as there's no prolonging of the moment of death or the like, I could handle regularly eating shrimp raised in this fashion. I may not have thought that position out well enough, but that's my gut reaction to ecologically-sound shrimp farming. The current shrimp industry, though, from what I understand, is an ecological menace...
I know that personally, I just reached a point where I could no longer participate in a food economy where torture of the animals was the norm and where unsafe conditions and environmental roulette were part of the industry doing business. It's been more than three years now since I stopped.
Back to gluttony, I know people "enjoy" eating meat, and you and I both have our thoughts on that, and I think people should only eat meat if they go to the actual farm where it is being raised and decide that they are comfortable with what is happening (and I'm not suggesting that this is in any way impossible, particularly with *real* local farms - but I think most meat eaters couldn't spend a day inside a factory farm and continue as they were). I'm obviously not in charge, so that's just my opinion, but it doesn't seem that unreasonable (to me).
But gluttony is wrong. In my meat-eating days I used to think it was some kind of feat to eat football player-sized men under the table - I could similarly drink beer prodigiously way back when. That's a hard memory to deal with. It wasn't funny. It was wrong. Unless people move over to veganism, it's obviously about where you draw the line. Is it at baby calves separated from their mothers and jammed into veal crates for some number of months before slaughter? Is it a chicken living in a space smaller than half of an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper for all of its life, or is it horrifying mechanical beak removal? I know no one is going to be berated into going vegan, but I damn sure will raise a ruckus about the evil ag giants industrializing suffering and perverting the word "farm." That's hardcore corporate fuckery, and when you add in the games they play with their consumers' health, and their shitty labor practices, it should be a pretty DU-friendly topic, imo.
But gluttony? Gluttony, no. If you spend even a moment thinking about what your food was, where it came from, what that bite at the end of your fork not only represents, but what it is, I just don't see how you could continue to give gluttony a pass. I'm definitely among those who see eating less meat as healthy and a step toward being more humane; I'm pretty certain that gorging one's self indiscriminately on chickens, pigs, cows, etc. is a step in the wrong direction.
Oh, and thanks for the links - the second one is directly relevant to a conversation I had with a friend the other night, and I'm going to forward him your link.
Lucky Luciano
(11,254 posts)WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)LisaL
(44,973 posts)former9thward
(32,002 posts)If you want to create broadbrush conclusions there are a lot of ways to go.
Liquorice
(2,066 posts)doesn't mean the two things are related or anything. Nope, no irony here.
former9thward
(32,002 posts)You don't think the stress of exercise may be related? There may be irony of a heart attack while eating a triple bypass burger but it is highly unlikely the two were related. Heart attacks come from a build up of heart disease not from what you are eating at the moment. The only heart attacks that I am aware of from the immediate ingestion of something is snorting large amounts of coke or similar.
Liquorice
(2,066 posts)Coronary artery disease is caused mainly by diet coupled with a predisposition to CAD. CAD is not caused by exercise. When a person has a heart attack while exercising it is usually because they have CAD and plaque in their artery has ruptured and is blocking blood flow. So while on the surface it is ironic for someone who is exercising to have a heart attack, many people who exercise have poor diets and might be exercising to manage their heart disease. So if you look at it that way, it's not really that ironic at all if someone has a heart attack while exercising.
However, eating something that is named after a medical procedure people get for heart disease, a triple bypass, and having a heart attack while eating it is ironic.
And while one large meal will not give you heart disease (CAD is from years of eating a poor diet), a large high-fat meal can cause a heart attack if you already have heart disease. In fact, one large meal that is high in fat, like the triple bypass burger, quadruples a person's chances of having a heart attack within two hours of eating it.
alcibiades_mystery
(36,437 posts)and to scoff at the "nanny-staters" who want to take away their "freedoms."
If they weren't costing us all billions of dollars a year through their utter gullibility to the sales pitches of the heart disease and cancer merchants, it would almost be fine to say, "Whatever, yo, eat your shit and die." Imagine all the shit we could do as a society if the ad men of the various heart disease merchants weren't so good at fooling these people into thinking that their own meaningless deaths were some form of rebellion against authority.
former9thward
(32,002 posts)But the 'tut-tuters' never reveal what they do or else they lie about it.
kwassa
(23,340 posts)That we don't reveal what we eat, and if we do, we lie.
Can't win, can we, in your fictional universe?
former9thward
(32,002 posts)I don't see any of the tut-tut posters saying what they eat and what their lifestyle is. It is called hypocrisy. Their lifestyle is the best and the only one everyone should follow. If only everyone was as smart as they are!
kwassa
(23,340 posts)There is no hypocrisy without anyone taking a stand in the first place. You assume a whole hell of a lot.
former9thward
(32,002 posts)Impossible to verify so there is no point.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)former9thward
(32,002 posts)Eating a certain type of meal will not give you a heart attack. If he was 'ready' to have a heart attack he would have had it if he was eating a bunch of celery.
Liquorice
(2,066 posts)That is according to doctors and researchers in the field. But I guess you know better.
<snip>
The consumption of a high-fat meal might contribute to acute clot formation. This, in turn, may cause a heart attack by blocking an artery," says Larsen.
http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/1997/A/199700054.html
Furthermore:
Grease-filled food raises blood levels of a protein called factor VII, he explains. The higher your factor VII, the more massive a clot you'll form to stop the bleeding from a ruptured plaque...and the slimmer your chances of surviving.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0813/is_n4_v21/ai_15224643/
And finally:
The study found heart attack risk jumped four times in the two hours after a large meal.
A very large meal may start the whole process of a heart attack, said Dr. Francisco Lopez-Jimenez, a cardiologist at Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=117825&page=1
former9thward
(32,002 posts)It was a study of 18 healthy young men none of whom had heart attacks. They said they could not draw conclusions for people with heart disease. It was filled with words like "might" and "may".
Your second link gave no information whatsoever on the study or if there was a study.
Your third link said "But the team did not record exactly what patients ate." So that can be anything. It also said sex and anger can trigger a heart attack. So I guess we better ban sex and sedate people 24/7 so they are never angry so they don't get a heart attack.
How about the Inuits and people in the northern part of Scandinavia where people have very high fat diets. How come they are not having heart attacks all over the place. In fact they should not even exist anymore according to your theory. But they do. Facts are stubborn things.
Crunchy Frog
(26,582 posts)He can at least vouch for their honesty in representing their product.
pinboy3niner
(53,339 posts)She'd take REAL good care of the customers,
Nikia
(11,411 posts)My stepfather's coworker had a heart attack shortly after eating a bunch of ribs at Famous Dave's and he takes it as a cautionary tale. On the other hand, I have a friend who is a cook at a family restaurant that prepared a man's last meal of oatmeal for him before the man dropped dead from a fatal heart attack while getting up from his table.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)what happened at Diarrhea Diner.