Fat Food Increases Stress

Fat food not only makes you look like a potato and ruins your health (from heart to vessel, brain, gut, liver and so on) but even pushes up your stress level. This is the result of a research made at the University of Calgary.

The researchers discovered that even just one, high-fat meal increases you predisposition to experience higher physical stress than people who consume a low-fat meal. The team assessed the stress reactions in two groups of students: one that ate a fast-food breakfast from McDonald's, the other ate dry cereal with skim milk, cereal bars and non-fat yogurt. "What's really shocking is that this is just one meal," said senior-author Dr Tavis Campbell, a specialist in behavioral medicine.

"It's been well documented that a high-fat diet leads to artherosclerosis and high blood pressure, and that exaggerated and prolonged cardiovascular responses to stress are associated with high blood pressure in the future. So when we learn that even a single, high-fat meal can make you more reactive to stress, it's cause for concern because it suggests a new and damaging way that a high-fat diet affects cardiovascular function."

The 30 healthy young volunteers fasted the night before the experiment. Both the high-fat meal and the low-fat meal actually contained the same energetic value. Two hours later, the subjects faced standard physical and mental stress tests: a stressful mathematical test, a public speaking exercise about something emotional, holding an arm in ice water, and experimenting a blood pressure cuff inflated around an arm, which gradually inflicted a dull ache.

"Regardless of the task, we recorded greater reactivity among those who consumed the high-fat meal in several cardiovascular measures we recorded, including blood pressure, heart rate and the resistance of blood vessels," said Fabijana Jakulj, a UC licentiate.

"Telling people to never eat something is probably not a good way to promote a better diet. At the same time we do have an epidemic of obesity in North America and it's important that people try to make informed choices." said Campbell.