One High-Saturated Fat Meal Can Be Bad
(Cleveland, AP, 8/7/2006)

Dr. Stephen Nicholls, now at the Cleveland Clinic, and team, had 14 people at The Heart Research Institute in Sydney, Australia, eat two meals of carrot cake and a milkshake one month apart. One meal used coconut oil and was high in saturated fat; the other used safflower oil and was high in polyunsaturated fat. The investigators found that three hours after saturated-fat consumption, the subjects' arteries could not properly expand to increase blood flow and after six hours, the anti-inflammatory qualities of the good cholesterol were still compromised. On the other hand, the polyunsaturated food seemed to enhance those anti-inflammatory properties and actually reduce inflammatory agents in the arteries. These findings suggest that eating even a single meal that is high in saturated fat can immediately create inflammation and damage the arteries.

(Journal of the American College of Cardiology: , August 15, 2006)