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William Atkins
Friday, 14 August 2009 19:12

Science - Health

The Eurekalert.com article quoted Dr. Murray, who at the time of the study was associated at Oxford University.

Dr. Murray stated, “We found that rats, when switched to a high-fat diet from their standard low-fat feed, showed a surprisingly quick reduction in their physical performance. After just nine days, they were only able to run 50 per cent as far on a treadmill as those that remained on the low-fat feed.”

The researchers also found that the size of the hearts of the high-fat rats was larger, showing that the heart was trying to pump more blood through the body in order to get more oxygen to the muscles.

The Eurekalert.com article states, “The results will be important not only in informing athletes of the best diets to help their training routine, but also in developing ideal diets for patients with metabolic disorders such as diabetes, insulin resistance or obesity. People with such conditions can have high levels of fat in the blood and show poor exercise tolerance, some cognitive decline, and can even develop dementia over time.”

Oxford University professor Kieran Clarke, another author in the study, stated, “These are startling results. It shows that high-fat feeding even over short periods of time can markedly affect gene expression, metabolism and physical performance. By optimising diets appropriately we should be able to increase athletes' endurance and help patients with metabolic abnormalities improve their ability to exercise and do more.”

In summary, the researchers found that eating a high-fat diet is detrimental to a rat's health even after only a few days, and that it could also apply to the health of humans, too.

Further investigations will be necessary to verify its validity in humans.