It may be fast and convenient to stop at McDonald's for breakfast on your way to work, but this may make you think twice: Eat two McMuffins and two hash browns for breakfast and your arteries will remain inflamed until lunchtime, HealthDayNews reports of a new study from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Why worry about inflammation of the arteries? This is a direct pathway to atherosclerosis and heart disease.

The specific breakfast cited by the SUNY Buffalo researchers is a McDonald's Egg McMuffin, a Sausage McMuffin, and two orders of hash browns. Total calories: 930. (It was supersized to reflect the typical amount of calories in a fast food meal.) Eat this and within an hour, it will trigger inflammation, says study co-author Dr. Paresh Dandona. What's more that inflammation continues for three or four hours longer.

Most of us are well aware that high-fat, high-carbohydrate meals raise our cholesterol levels and send our blood sugar rates soaring. That puts us at greater risk for diabetes and cardiovascular disease. But now nutritionists are aware there is a third danger: inflammation of the blood vessels. The fats and carbohydrate sugars appear to release "free radical" molecules within the blood cells, which in turn trigger the inflammation, reports HealthDayNews.

When nine healthy young adults ate this 930-calorie McMuffin/hash brown breakfast after an overnight fast, their blood showed a definite change compared to individuals who ate no breakfast. Those who ate the McDonald's breakfast displayed "evidence of free radical generation by the circulating white blood cells, which would cause inflammation within the white blood cells," Dandona said.

The primary culprits of the McDonald's breakfast are the hash browns, cooking oil, and muffins--not the egg or sausage. The SUNY Buffalo team is now studying the effects of  300-calorie and 1,800-calorie breakfasts. Note that McDonald's isn't the only breakfast that can stress your arteries. Sit-down restaurants and even home-cooked meals can do the same thing.

The study findings were published in the April issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.