A single high-fat milkshake, with a fat and calorie content similar to some enticing restaurant fare, can quickly transform our healthy red blood cells into small, spiky cells that wreak havoc inside our blood vessels and help set the perfect stage for cardiovascular disease, scientists report.
A single high-fat milkshake, with a fat and calorie content similar to some enticing restaurant fare, can quickly transform our healthy red blood cells into small, spiky cells that wreak havoc inside our blood vessels and help set the perfect stage for cardiovascular disease, scientists report.
Just four hours after consuming a milkshake made with whole milk, heavy whipping cream and ice cream, healthy young men also had blood vessels less able to relax and an immune response similar to one provoked by an infection, the team of Medical College of Georgia scientists report in the journal Laboratory Investigation.
While the dramatic, unhealthy shift was likely temporary in these healthy individuals, the scientists say there is a definite cumulative toll from this type of eating, and that their study could help explain isolated reports of death and/or heart attack right after eating a super-high fat meal.
“We see this hopefully as a public service to get people to think twice about eating this way,” says Dr. Neal L. Weintraub, cardiologist, Georgia Research Alliance Herbert S. Kupperman Eminent Scholar in Cardiovascular Medicine and associate director of MCG’s Vascular Biology Center.
Read more at Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University
Image: (from left) Dr. Julia E. Brittain, Dr. Neal L. Weintraub, Tyler W. Benson, Dr. Ryan A. Harris and Dr. Ha Won Kim photo taken in the Medical College of Georgia's Vascular Biology Center Lab. (Credit: Phil Jones, Senior Photographer, Augusta University)
