Can't remember your favorite fast-food joint? There's a reason!

William Atkins
Friday, 14 August 2009 19:12

Science - Health

According to British researchers, if you eat a high-fat diet (such as from fast-food establishments), you could have a higher risk of experiencing short-term memory loss and could have less efficiency when exercising your muscles.


The researchers in this study are Andrew J. Murray, Nicholas S. Knight, Lowri E. Cochlin, Sara McAleese, Robert M. J. Deacon, J. Nicholas P. Rawlins, and Kieran Clarke.

The title of their study in the FASEB Journal (Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology) is “Deterioration of physical performance and cognitive function in rats with short-term high-fat feeding” (FASEB J. doi:10.1096/fj.09-139691).

The researchers tested their hypothesis that eating a high-fat diet in the short-term (less than ten days) is detrimental to the ability to exercise and increases short-term memory loss.

They tested 42 rats. All of the rats were initially fed a low-fat diet of 7.5% fat. They measured the rats’ physical endurance on a treadmill and their short-term memory on a maze.

Then, 24 rats were switched to a high-fat diet of 55% fat, while the other rats—the control group—were continued on the low-fat dit.

A diet of 7.5% is very low in fat even for people trying to eliminate fat from their diets.

And, a diet of 55% is very high even for people who eat along of fatty foods. The researchers say that such a diet is like eating junk food all of the time.

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