saturated fat tagged posts

Consuming fish oil instead of lard makes a significant difference in brain function. New research shows that brain function remains normal and manages to restrain from eating more than necessary when this type of fat is consumed. Credit: © colnihko / Fotolia

A diet high in saturated fat can make your brain struggle to control what you eat, says a new study in Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience. If people are looking to lose weight, stay clear of saturated fat. Consuming these types of fatty food affects a part of the brain called the hypothalamus, which helps regulate hunger. The fat causes inflammation that impedes the brain to control the food intake. In other words, people struggle to control how much they eat, when to stop and what type of food to eat – symptoms seen in obesity.

The s...

Chronic, low-grade inflammation caused by high fat diets contributes to obesity and type 2 diabetes and other inflammation-related disorders like cardiovascular disease, stroke and rheumatoid arthritis. Prof David Earnest, Ph.D. and his team have shown that consumption of saturated fats at certain times may “jet lag” internal clocks, as well as the resulting inflammation.

Earnest’s previous work suggested that a high-fat diet alters how our body clocks keep time, particularly in immune cells that mediate inflammation. Earlier findings show that a high fat diet slows down the clocks in immune cells such that they no longer “tell” accurate time. Now, he and his team, including Robert S. Chapkin, Ph.D...

A mouse’s fat cells (red) are shown surrounded by a network of blood vessels (green). Source: Daniela Malide, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health

UC SF scientists have found a surprising new avenue for potential therapies to reduce risk of type 2 diabetes and other metabolic disorders associated with chronic tissue inflammation in obesity. Inflammation in obesity may be caused, at least in part, by a completely different mechanism from the one that controls normal immune responses. The research shows saturated fats “short-circuit” both mouse and human immune cells, producing an inappropriate inflammatory response as a consequence...

A new study found eating less fiber, more saturated fat, sugar is associated with lighter, less restorative, and more disrupted sleep. Results show that greater fiber intake predicted more time spent in deep, slow wave sleep. In contrast, a higher percentage of energy from saturated fat predicted less slow wave sleep. Greater sugar intake also was associated with more arousals from sleep.

“Our main finding was that diet quality influenced sleep quality,” said Marie-Pierre St-Onge, PhD, assistant professor in the department of medicine and Institute of Human Nutrition at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, N.Y. “It was most surprising that a single day of greater fat intake and lower fiber could influence sleep parameters.”

The study also found that participants fell asleep fas...