Association of fried food consumption with all cause, cardiovascular, and cancer mortality: prospective cohort study

Objective: To examine the prospective association of total and individual fried food consumption with all cause and cause specific mortality in women in the United States.

Design: Prospective cohort study.

Setting: Women's Health Initiative conducted in 40 clinical centers in the US.

Participants: 106 966 postmenopausal women aged 50-79 at study entry who were enrolled between September 1993 and 1998 in the Women's Health Initiative and followed until February 2017.

Main outcome measures: All cause mortality, cardiovascular mortality, and cancer mortality.

Results: 31 558 deaths occurred during 1 914 691 person years of follow-up. For total fried food consumption, when comparing at least one serving per day with no consumption, the multivariable adjusted hazard ratio was 1.08 (95% confidence interval 1.01 to 1.16) for all cause mortality and 1.08 (0.96 to 1.22) for cardiovascular mortality. When comparing at least one serving per week of fried chicken with no consumption, the hazard ratio was 1.13 (1.07 to 1.19) for all cause mortality and 1.12 (1.02 to 1.23) for cardiovascular mortality. For fried fish/shellfish, the corresponding hazard ratios were 1.07 (1.03 to 1.12) for all cause mortality and 1.13 (1.04 to 1.22) for cardiovascular mortality. Total or individual fried food consumption was not generally associated with cancer mortality.

Conclusions: Frequent consumption of fried foods, especially fried chicken and fried fish/shellfish, was associated with a higher risk of all cause and cardiovascular mortality in women in the US.