Here’s what (allegedly) happens to your body after you eat a Big Mac

For many, those two all-beef patties with special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, and onions on a sesame seed bun served by McDonalds are a guilty pleasure. However, once you get a look at the new infographic from website Fast Food Menu Price, you might decide to kick the habit.
The infographic, which has made headlines at Yahoo Health, in the New York Daily News and elsewhere, breaks down what the Big Mac (allegedly) does to a person’s system in the hour after he or she consumes the popular fast-food offering – and, well, let’s just say it isn’t pretty.

According to the infographic, the 540 calorie sandwich causes a person’s blood sugar levels to spike to abnormal levels within the first 10 minutes of eating it. Like other types of junk food, it also triggers the brain’s reward system by releasing the neurotransmitter dopamine, increasing a person’s likelihood of eating compulsively and mimicking the effects of illicit drugs.
Within 30 minutes, the 970 milligrams of sodium in the burger can cause dehydration. Since the kidneys have trouble eliminating all of that salt and the heart has to work double-time so that it can pump blood through the body, eating Big Macs can eventually lead to high blood pressure, heart disease, and stroke, the infographic explains.
Forty minutes after finishing a Big Mac, a person can begin to feel hungry again, according to the infographic. This is because the high-calorie meal triggers an insulin response to lower blood glucose levels, and the quick absorption of the high-fructose corn syrup in the burger can result in insulin spikes that purportedly can create the desire to eat again.
Gross… but is it scientifically accurate?
McDonald’s UK disputes the claims made by the infographic, telling The Indepedent, “We do not recognize the ingredients or nutritional information within this graphic. The so-called facts in this image are misleading and bear no resemblance to the Big Mac available to customers in the UK. We have been displaying nutritional information for all of our menu items for over 30 years so it is a shame to see such inaccurate figures and information being circulated.”
Certified dietitian nutritionist Lisa Moskovitz, CEO of NewYork Nutrition Group, told Yahoo that every person would have a different reaction to eating a Big Mac, and that the information contained in the graphic was accurate but “somewhat exaggerated.” For instance, she said that it was not 100 percent accurate to say that a person’s blood sugar would spike to “abnormal levels” because each person has a unique blood sugar and insulin response.
Moskovitz also said that the fat content of the sandwich could slow down the conversion of the carbohydrate content into glucose that travels through the blood, and that its ability to cause a person to become dehydrated varied on other factors, including exercise habits, medical history, and the amount of water currently in his or her system.
Dr. Rebecca Blake, director of clinical nutrition at Mount Sinai Beth Israel, told the Daily News that the Big Mac isn’t something that a person should eat every day for health reasons, but noted that the infographic contained “generalizations that I don’t think are very science based – they have little snippets of science truth in them, but I think this is designed as a scare tactic.”
—–
Featured Image: Frederic Bisson/Flickr
Story Image: Fast Food Menu Price