Clinical Research Directory

Effect of High Fat Diet on Muscle Metabolism

Sponsor: Kevin Davy

Summary

Skeletal muscle burns a significant amount of the fat and sugar that circulates in the blood stream. Ideally, when sugar is elevated in the blood stream, the muscle will either use it to make new energy or store it for later use. Likewise, for fatty acids. Skeletal muscle of obese and diabetic humans has been shown to inadequately use either sugar or fatty acids when they increase in the blood stream, and this has been termed metabolic inflexibility. The cause of metabolic inflexibility is not known, but it is believed that eating more fat than the body needs for energy may be a contributing factor. Metabolic inflexibility in skeletal muscle is bad because if the muscle does not use the sugar or fat, it will be stored elsewhere in the body and potentially lead to obesity and the resistance to insulin. The investigators have performed a research study with nonobese, healthy humans during which we fed them a high fat diet for 5 days. Interesting, only 5 days of a high fat diet is sufficient to cause the skeletal muscle to become metabolically inflexible just like that observed in obese and diabetic humans. The investigators are proposing addition studies to feed healthy humans a high fat diet for 5 days in effort to better understand what causes metabolic flexibility. The investigators are speculating that a high fat diet causes the intestines to release a substance called endotoxin that causes muscle to become metabolically inflexible. The investigators will test this notion in our proposed studies.

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