London, August 13: Feeling inactive and slow? Blame it on your high-fat diet.
According to a new study, Oxford University experts reaffirm the well-known notion of high-fat diet leading to sluggishness.
The revelations came into light when rats fed on a high-fat diet showed a stark reduction in their physical endurance and a decline in their cognitive ability merely after nine days.
“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,” says Dr Andrew Murray, who led the work at Oxford University.
“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”, he says.
There are possible implications not only for those eating lots of high-fat foods, but also athletes looking for the optimal diet for training and also the patients with metabolic disorders, FASEB Journal added.
During the study, the physical endurance of all 42 rats was measured after they were fed a low fat content of 7.5 per cent and their short-term or ‘working’ memory was measured in a maze task.
–Agencies