California: While consumption of low-fat foods has many health benefits, including weight loss, a new study has found that low-fat consumption may help protect against pandemics like Covid-19.
Researchers at the University of California-Riverside observed alarming changes in gene expression (the process by which information in a gene is converted into a function) in people who ate high-fat diets.
The results of the study revealed that high-fat diets increase the gene expression of proteins in the body that are used by covid proteins to enter the body and infect it.
According to Francis Sladek, a UCLA cell biology professor and the study’s senior author, the bottom line is that a plant-based diet is better for health, and in many cases, that’s true. However, a high-fat diet, even if it is plant-based, is a case in which this is not true.
The researchers said their research suggests that high-fat diets not only affect genes related to obesity, colon cancer or stomach infections, but also genes related to the immune system, brain function and risk of Covid-19. Genes also have an effect.
In a study published in Scientific Reports, researchers fed three groups of mice different diets. Among these diets were a diet that contained at least 40 percent of calories from fat, a diet based on saturated fat from coconut oil, and a third diet based on genetically modified soybean oil. It was based on saturated fat.
Data from these mice were compared to a group of mice fed a low-fat diet. The study, which lasted more than 24 weeks, found that there were alarming changes in gene expression in all three groups of mice when compared to the low-fat diet.
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