This is a study that provides yet another reason to minimize cakes, cookies and other industrial food products containing “vegetable oil”, that is, palm oil. Instead, foods with high quality oils such as sunflower, rapeseed or soybean oil are preferred.
What does that change, you will say? Palm oil contains so-called saturated fats accused of raising the level of bad cholesterol (LDL-cholesterol) and promoting cardiovascular disease. Conversely, these are polyunsaturated fats found in sunflower, rapeseed or soybean oil, good lipids which can reduce bad cholesterol.
Better fat distribution
But that’s not the only quality these polyunsaturated fatty acids have. Researchers at the University of Uppsala in Sweden have demonstrated their role in the distribution of fat in the body. 39 adults consumed an excess of 750 calories per day for a week in order to increase their weight by 3%. The additional sugars and fats were provided by eating muffins, some of which were palm oil (saturated fat) and others were sunflower oil (polyunsaturated fat).
Verdict, if everyone has put on weight well, differences were noted by MRI in the distribution of body fat and the development of muscle mass. Thus, the fat mass in the liver and abdomen rose in people who ate palm oil muffins.
In the group that consumed sunflower oil muffins, weight gain was mainly reflected in an increase in muscle mass, three times that of the “saturated fat” group.
Saturated fat promotes diabetes
Morality, even if it means eating fat and gaining weight, it is better to absorb polyunsaturated fat than saturated fat. These, by depositing on organs such as the liver and abdomen, increase the risk of metabolic diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. “Liver and visceral fat appear to contribute to a number of metabolic disorders. These results may therefore be important for individuals with metabolic diseases such as diabetes”, explains Ulf Risérus, director of the study published in the journal Diabete, quoted by Pourquoidocteur.