Eat a Lot of Fat, and Then Exercise?

We usually think of nutritional changes taking place slowly – a week or so of overeating resulting in a gain of a few pounds’ weight. But it may be that some changes occur quite quickly, and can be controlled by an equally quick response. Here’s an example from an article in the European Journal of Applied Physiology. After a fatty meal, arteries lose their ability to expand in response to an increase in blood flow – the arteries behave just like those of someone who has atherosclerosis. But, say researchers at the University of Bloomington, if you exercise after that meal, the arteries behave much more normally. They can expand in response to an increase in blood flow.

These observations are based on results obtained in eight volunteers, all 25-year-olds, who were healthy. After a meal of eggs, sausages, and hash browns (16.5 grams of saturated fat and 4.5 grams of trans-fats), followed by aerobic exercise, the response in the brachial (arm) artery blood flow was better than before the fat meal.

As the investigators say, these findings suggest that a single aerobic exercise session can counteract the ‘dysfunction’ induced in the artery by a fat meal. Of course, if you eat a lot of fat meals, you’d have to exercise after all of them. And, in fact, effective aerobic exercise is not always very comfortable just after a meal . . .