The so-called Western diet, with its high fat composition, is the subject of much abuse because of its connection with elevated risk for numerous chronic diseases. But a new study by researchers at the University of California-Riverside suggests that it may increase voluntary exercise, at least in creatures with an innate predisposition toward exercise. The study involved mice, and there’s no telling whether the results seen in these animals would translate to humans. Researchers bred a strain of mice that really liked to run on wheels. In fact, these mice voluntarily ran 2.5-3.0 times as much as normal mice. A bunch of these runner mice and normal mice were given either a high-fat Western diet or a low-fat control diet for two months. Their total caloric intake, weight and adiposity, and running volume were tracked.
The Western diet was found to increase weight and adiposity in both the runner mice and normal mice, but much less so in the runner mice. Mice on the Western diet ate significantly more total calories during the first month of the study, but not the last month. But the most interesting finding was that runner mice on the Western diet voluntarily ran 75 percent more than runner mice on the control diet. The authors of the study, which was published in the International Journal of Obesity, speculated that the high fat content of the diet might have given the mice the endurance needed to run more or it might have somehow increased their psychological motivation to exercise.
Does this mean that human runners are better off on a Western diet? Who knows?
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