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A new study, which was conducted on rats, has proved that, these rats showcased a drastic reduction in their physical stamina as well as cognitive capabilities within a span of just 9 days.
The research, which had been sponsored by British Heart Foundation, is applicable for high-fats addicts and athletes, who are always after optimal diet as well as for those people who suffer from metabolic disorders.
"We found that rats, when switched to a high-fat diet from their standard low-fat feed, showed a surprisingly quick reduction in their physical performance," says Andrew Murray, who led the study at Oxford University and is now with the University of Cambridge.
"After just nine days, they were only able to run 50 percent as far on a treadmill as those that remained on the low-fat feed," adds Murray. He added that these high-fat foods can prove to harmful in a long span, as they spark off obesity diabetes and heart failure.
The researchers observed the rats which were fed on high fat diet for a few days to verify if they displayed any visible decline in physical stamina as well as cognitive abilities.
The 42 rats were fed on diet with low fat content of 7.5 percent. Their physical endurance was measured by how long they could run on a treadmill and their short-term or 'working' memory was measured in a maze task.
Then about 21 rats were converted to a fat-rich food where 55 percent of the calories came from fat. After four days of getting used to the new diet, the endurance and cognitive performance of the rats on the low- and high-fat diets were compared for another five days.
"With the standard feed, 7.5 percent of the calories come from fat. That's a pretty low-fat diet, much like humans eating nothing but muesli," says Murray.
"The high-fat diet, in which 55 percent of the calories came from fat, sounds high but it's actually not extraordinarily high by human standards. A junk food diet would come close to that," Murrray adds.
On the fifth day of the putting on the high-fat diet, the rats were observed on their treadmill. It was noted that they were 30% less efficient when compared to those who were on the low-fat diet. By the ninth day, the last of the experiment, they were running 50 percent less far.
The rats, who were on a high-fat diet, made mistakes in the maze task more than those, which were on the low-fat diet.
These findings were published in the FASEB journal.
