Wednesday 4 May 2011

Feed a Fever, Fatten a Heart Attack?


“A diet low in saturated fats,” is a phrase we most often associate with a healthy, heart-happy lifestyle. If your dad came home from the hospital after a heart attack, a cheeseburger likely wouldn’t be the first object you’d thrust into his hand. And while I’m not suggesting you put a poutine vending machine in your local cardiac ward, new research suggests that saturated fats might actually be beneficial for heart patients.

            A new study headed by Margaret Chandler of Case Western Reserve University investigated the effect of a high-fat diet on rats with heart failure. Surprisingly (at least to this health-conscious citizen), the post-heart attack rats fed on a high fat diet had improved heart function over their ho-hum diet counterparts. This was true for resting rats and (rat race anyone?) rats under stress.

            So how on earth does a high fat diet HELP heart function? The same group of researchers tried to answer this question by investigating what genes are being expressed in the healthy, heart-unhappy, and fat-fed rats. This is like looking at which tools from an industrial-sized toolbox are out on the bench, and which are stored away. Using this metaphor, heart cells in a person who has heart damage might put away their hammer and take out their sledge hammer. However, this new study shows that a high fat diet actually helps to make damaged heart use more of the same tools as a healthy heart, thus bringing it closer to a pre-heart attack state.

            Now to burst your bubble, before you go stock up on fast-food coupons: diets high in saturated fat do nothing (read NOTHING) to help a normal healthy heart. And as a crucial caution for all new research with a medical slant: Don’t Try This at Home!

            This type of study might someday lead to better treatment to help keep heart patients healthy. In the mean time it’s a pretty cool study that makes this scientist go, “Huh, who knew?”
            

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