Volunteers who stayed in bed for a week and ate 6,000 calories of pizza and burgers every day in the name of science developed medical issues in just TWO DAYS
- Researchers say the experiment was designed to replicate US diet
- Subjects stayed bed bound in a hospital for the duration of the experiment
- In 7 days gained average of 3.5 kg and showed signs of insulin resistance
Researchers have conducted a unique experiment to study how the American diets affects people.
They recruited six men to eat a 6,000 calorie a day diet consisting of pizza, hamburgers and other junk food for a week.
If that wasn't enough, they also stayed in a hospital for the duration of the experiment, where they were bed-bound, carefully monitored and prevented from doing any sort of exercise.
In just 7 days all of the subjects gained average of 3.5 kg and showed signs of insulin resistance. Researchers say the experiment was designed to replicate the average US diet.
Guenther Boden and Salim Merali at Temple University, Philadelphia, said they aimed to recreate the average US diet and find out how it can lead to type 2 diabetes.
'Here, we have shown that feeding a common U.S. diet to healthy nonobese men at 2 to 2.5 times their regular caloric intake for as little as 1 to 2 days produced severe systemic and adipose tissue insulin resistance in every one of six study subjects,' they concluded.
'It was a regular, American diet, composed of pizzas, hamburgers and that sort of thing,' Merali told New Scientist.
'They took to the diet, and liked it,' says Boden.
The study lasted a week.
'In that time, the men gained an average of 3.5 kg and showed signs of insulin resistance as well as oxidative stress,' the team wrote in Science Translational Medicine.
By day two, all had a rapid and continuous rise in both blood insulin and insulin resistance levels, enough to cause 'severe systemic and adipose tissue insulin resistance in every one of six study subjects,' the researchers said in the paper.
The researchers designed the study to find out about insulin resistance.
'Obesity is very common in the United States and worldwide, and it is associated with a host of health problems collectively known as the metabolic syndrome,' they wrote.
'Insulin resistance is a key component of this syndrome, but the mechanism by which obesity promotes insulin resistance is not yet fully understood.
Guenther Boden and Salim Merali at Temple University, Philadelphia, said they aimed to recreate the average US diet.
They found the process was associated with inactivation of GLUT4, a major insulin-facilitated glucose transporter, suggesting a potential approach for the development of future therapeutic agents.
About 50% of the diet was carbohydrates, 35% fats, and 15% was protein.
Three of the men were normal weight, three were overweight, and none were obese or unhealthy at the start.
They were all hospitalized and remained on bed rest throughout the study.
Half of all US adults are suffering from diabetes or are at risk of developing the condition in the near future, according to a new study.
Worse still, the vast majority of those with diabetes or prediabetes - defined as patients with high blood sugar at risk of getting the condition - are not aware they have it, researchers say.
According to the U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, the vast majority of cases are Type 2 diabetes, which is caused by poor diet and a lack of exercise.
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