Did you indulge in high fat foods over the long holiday weekend? Well, a new study by Virginia Tech nutrition experts find that just five days of that could set you up for inflammatory diseases like diabetes.
The study finds it’s not weight gain, but subtler changes to the way muscles metabolize nutrients that sets in after just five days of a high fat binge. Professor of human nutrition, food and exercise, Matt Hulver led the study.
“Let’s say an individual goes from a healthy lifestyle to things happen where they’re not eating quite as healthy, changes can happen to metabolism quite quickly.”
Study subjects ate high fat meals, and we’re talking extremely high saturated fat, such as mac and cheese, and foods slathered in butter. They got 50% of their calories from fat, way more than most people eat. The study was looking to confirm that it’s saturated fat that alters metabolism after just a few days. Further studies are beginning to confirm that.
“So because we’re seeing what we saw, happen so quickly, we begin to ask the question, are we seeing some signals that could be risk factors for insulin resistance?”
Insulin resistance can be a pre-cursor to diabetes. And scientists think these responses to high fat could also lead to inflammation, a pre-cursor to heart disease and cancer. Next, they’ll look to see if the ill effects go away as quickly as they appear after a high fat binge.
