Eating (fatty) food appears to take an almost immediate toll on both short-term (memory) and exercise performance, according to new research on (rats) and people. It’s already known that long-term consumption of a high-fat diet is associated with weight gain, heart disease and declines in cognitive (function). But the new research shows how indulging in fatty foods over the course of a few days can affect the brain and body long before the (extra) pounds show up. To determine the (effect) of a fatty diet on memory and muscle performance, researchers studied 32 rats that were fed low-fat rat chow and trained for two months to complete a (challenging) maze. The maze included eight different (paths) that ended with a treat of (sweetened) condensed milk. The goal was for the rat to find each treat without doubling back into a corridor where it had already been. The maze was wiped down with alcohol, so the rat had to (rely) (on) memory rather than sense of smell. All of the rats studied had mastered the maze, finding at least six or seven of the eight treats before making a mistake. Some rats (even) found all eight on the first try. Then half the rats (were) switched to high-fat rat chow [comprised of 55 percent fat], while the remaining rats stayed on their regular chow [which had 7.5 percent fat]. After four days, the rats eating the fatty chow began to falter on the maze test — all of them did worse than when they were on their regular chow. On (average), the rats on the fatty diet found only five treats before making a mistake. The rats who stayed with their regular food continued the same high level of performance on the maze, finding six or more treats before making a mistake. Half of the rats had also been trained to (run) on a treadmill. After only a few days on the high-fat diet, the rats performed 30 percent worse on the treadmill. After five days of testing, the treadmill performance of the rats eating fatty foods had declined by half. The study results appear in The Faseb Journal, which is the (journal) of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. “We expected to see changes, but maybe not so dramatic and not in such a short (space) of time,’’ said Andrew Murray, the study’s lead author and a lecturer in (physiology) at Cambridge University in Britain. “It was really striking how quickly these effects happened."
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