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Thursday, December 10, 2009How to Avoid Feeling Lazy and Dull This Holiday Season
Yep! Holiday season is started. With endless party opportunities,
chips, mashed potatoes, gravy and creamy desserts will almost be a daily
occurrence for the next few weeks. Other
than the few pounds you might gain,
are there other consequences to this temporary change of diet?
There are - and they might be quite more significant than
you think.
New research shows that after just a few days
of high-fat diets, our muscles get lazy and our memories get worse.
Here's how this was discovered. Lab rats were assigned to one of two
conditions: low-fat versus high-fat diets.
Only 4 days into the experiment, the muscles of the rats in the
high-fat
condition became less able to use oxygen, making their hearts work
harder and
discouraging them to be physically active.
Equally important, these rats made significantly more mistakes while
finding their way out of a maze they knew, showing that their memory
was also weakened. In other words,
eating too much fat impedes high physical energy and impairs cognitive
abilities.
"It's
nothing short of a
high-fat hangover," said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of The
Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology
Journal."
That being said, there is no need to become a low-fat
freak (in fact, I have a few
convincing arguments against it!). So
here's the bottom line: pay attention. If you know there will
be nachos and cheese dip this afternoon, make a point to avoid fatty
meals and
snacks the rest of the day. And remember: fats that harden in the
fridge (like butter) and trans fats are the worst ones
for you.
There
is an important connection between what we eat, how our brains function, and
how our bodies perform. The link is
direct and tough to ignore - unless of course, you've already eaten so much fat
in the past few days that you can't think straight!