Instant noodles: A quick snack that can lead to long term health problems

Even though instant noodles are cheap and easy to prepare, they can cause many illnesses, including Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome.

Thanks to an experiment led by Doctor Braden Kuo of Massachusetts General Hospital, people have more information about how critical instant noodles can be on their health.

According to Healthy Holistic, they used a pill-sized camera to record the digestive process of a person who ate normal, homemade noodles and repeated the experiment with instant noodles the following day.

They learned that the former was digested in a couple of hours while the latter looked almost intact after two hours of being in the stomach. It could mean that eating instant noodles will force people’s digestive system to work more time than usual.

While that is a severe problem, instant noodles also have high doses of Tertiary Butyl Hydroquinone (TBHQ), a byproduct of the petroleum industry that most food companies describe as an antioxidant.

It is a synthetic chemical with antioxidant properties and consuming only one gram of it might cause nausea and vomiting, ringing in the ears, delirium, sense of suffocation, and collapse.

Another study published in Journal of Nutrition revealed that women who eat instant noodles regularly are prone to metabolic syndrome.

It is a group of symptoms including central obesity, elevated blood pressure, fasting blood sugar, fasting triglycerides, and low levels of HDL cholesterol.

All those health problems lead to something bigger and more dangerous: diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

There are a couple of substances in instant noodles that can lead to degenerative diseases, as well. In 2012, authorities found small doses of Benzopyrene (a cancer-causing element) in six different brands.

They also found Monosodium Glutamate (MSG), an excitotoxin that may cause brain dysfunction and progressive illnesses like Alzheimer’s disease or Parkinson’s disease, learning disabilities, and more.

Finally, labs use MSG to fatten up mice for scientific studies, which mean that it can be seen as ‘the perfect obesity drug.’