Eating fatty foods is ‘the only cause of weight gain’, new study suggests
In recent decades, diet gurus have shifted the blame for weight gain onto high-carb foods – particularly snacks containing lots of sugar.
A new mouse study suggests that high-fat diets, not high-sugar ones, cause weight gain – and also stimulate the brain’s reward centres into eating more.
The ‘unequivocal’ study monitored mice over the course of three months, the equivalent of nine human years.
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It’s the largest study of its kind, and focused on mice as they are genetically similar to humans.
The mice were monitored with an MRI machine to assess body fat, with 100000 measurements of body weight recorded.
The researchers found that even mice who were fed diets where 30% of the calories came from sugar did not undergo significant weight gain.
Professor John Speakma said: ‘The result of this enormous study was unequivocal – the only thing that made the mice get fat was eating more fat in their diets.
‘These effects of dietary fat seemed to be because uniquely fat in the diet stimulated the reward centres in the brain, stimulating greater intake.’
