Think twice before justifying the occasional fast food splurge.
According to a study conducted by researchers at the
University of Cincinnati, even short-term indulgence in high-fat foods can contribute to the development of cardiovascular disease.
The connection, the study indicates, occurs when fatty food intake inflames fat tissues surrounding blood vessels.
This research, funded by the
National Institutes of Health, was published in the February 20, 2009, issue of
American Heart Association journal,
Circulation Research.
The researchers examined fat tissue surrounding the arteries of both humans and mice – which they also fed a high-fat diet for two weeks – and discovered inflammation of the blood vessels, a major factor in the hardening of the arteries.
“This is independent of weight gain or blood lipids—cholesterol levels,” says Neal Weintraub, MD, senior author of the study and chair of the cardiovascular diseases division at UC. “These new findings suggest a direct link between poor dietary habits and inflammation of blood vessels, mediated by the fat cells surrounding the blood vessel wall.”
Contrary to popular belief, Weintraub adds, this connection does not always correlate with high blood lipid (bad cholesterol) levels. "Many patients who consume high fat diets do not exhibit abnormal lipid profiles but still develop atherosclerosis nonetheless," he says.
An alarming detail about this study, Weintraub notes, is that the diet fed the mice closely resembles that of an average American.
“It produced striking abnormalities of the fat tissue surrounding blood vessels in a very short period of time,” Weintraub says. “This is a warning to those who say there isn’t a problem because their weight and cholesterol levels are under control. Lipid profiles don’t hold all the answers."
This ground-breaking research, Weintraub suggests, is only scraping the surface of a nationwide problem demanding deeper examination.
“We don’t know why these cells are so responsive to high-fat diets,” he says. “We must now conduct further experiments to answer these types of questions.”
Researchers from the division of transplant surgery at UC, the emergency medicine department at UC and the
University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine also took part in the study.
Writer: Jonathan DeHart
Source: Wendy Beckman, University of Cincinnati
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