New Study Reveals the Surprising Health Risks to Eating Instant Ramen

If instant ramen is your go-to meal of choice, you may want to read this new study before you consume those tasty noodles.

A new Korean study published in the Journal of Nutrition found that instant noodle products are linked to cardiometabolic syndrome, a factor that increases your chance for heart attack, stroke and diabetes- especially for women.

Lead researcher Hyun Joon Shin, MD explained,

The study looked at 10,711 adults ages 19-64 and found that eating ramen at least twice a week is associated with a number of abnormalities in the body’s cardiovascular, renal, and metabolic systems.

The specific cause of the problems isn’t clear yet, but it most likely has to do with how instant noodles are packaged in styrofoam which contains bisphenol A, or BPA. BPA is a known hormone disruptor, which is most likely why women were found to be more affected in this study.

Other unhealthy ingredients in instant noodles include “flavor enhancer”  MSG and chemical preservative tertiary-butylhydroquinone, or TBHQ, which is high in saturated fat.

South Korea, where the study was conducted, has the highest per-capita number of instant noodle consumers in the world- the U.S.is ranked sixth in the world behind China, Indonesia, Japan, Vietnam and India.