Scientists studied effects of a high fat milkshake on the cardiovascular health of healthy males
A single high-fat milkshake can wreak havoc inside our blood vessels and help set the perfect stage for cardiovascular disease.
Just four hours after consuming a milkshake made with whole milk, heavy whipped cream and ice cream, healthy young men had blood vessels less able to relax. The immune response was similar to one provoked by an infection. The findings have been reported by a team of Medical College of Georgia scientists in the journal Laboratory Investigation.
While the dramatic, unhealthy shift was likely temporary in these healthy individuals, scientists say there is a definite cumulative toll from this type of eating. The 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. The take-home message is that your body can usually handle this if you don’t do it again at the next meal and the next and the next,” says Dr. Neal L. Weintraub, cardiologist, Georgia Research Alliance Herbert S. Kupperman Eminent Scholar in Cardiovascular Medicine.
Their study in 10 young men was the first to look specifically at red blood cells, the most abundant cell in our blood. Red cells are best known for carrying oxygen
As a practicing cardiologist, Weintraub, also a corresponding author, has patients with cardiovascular disease who continue to eat a high-fat diet and he definitely asks them to think twice: “Is this food worth your life?”
While none of the scientists recommend going overboard on calories and sugar either, the healthy males in the study who instead consumed a meal with the same number of calories but no fat – three big bowls of sugar-coated flakes with no-fat milk – did not experience the same harmful changes to their blood, red blood cells and blood vessels.
“You are looking at what one, high-fat meal does to blood-vessel health,” says Dr. Ryan A. Harris, clinical exercise and vascular physiologist at MCG’s Georgia Prevention Institute and study co-author.
Their study in 10 young men was the first to look specifically at red blood cells, the most abundant cell in our blood. Red cells are best known for carrying oxygen and are incredibly flexible so they flow through blood vessels essentially unnoticed.
But with a single high-fat meal, they essentially grow spikes and spew poison. “They changed size, they changed shape, they got smaller,” Harris says of the rapid changes to the form and function of red blood cells.
In both the cells and blood, there was evidence of myeloperoxidase, or MPO, an enzyme expressed by a type of white blood cell which, at high levels in the blood, has been linked to stiff blood vessels, oxidative stress and heart attack in humans.
MPO is associated with impaired ability of blood vessels to dilate, even oxidation of HDL cholesterol, which converts this usually cardioprotective cholesterol into a contributor to cardiovascular disease. When taken up by a diseased artery, it can even help destabilize plaque buildup, which can result in a stroke or heart attack.
“Myeloperoxidase levels in the blood are directly implicated in heart attack,” Weintraub notes. “This is a really powerful finding.”
