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Media Relations

Exercise: Brisk walk can counter effect of fatty meals

New York Times
Sept. 5, 2006

By Nicholas Bakalar

Eating a high-fat meal has a negative health effect that can be immediately measured: it lowers flow mediated dilation -- the ability of blood vessels to expand and contract in response to increased blood flow. But a small study suggests that there is a way to counteract the effect: vigorous aerobic exercise within two hours of the meal. Janet P. Wallace, a professor of kinesiology at Indiana University Bloomington, was the study's lead author. She and her fellow authors acknowledge that the study sample was limited to eight healthy young adults. But the effect was statistically highly significant, suggesting a meaningful treatment effect. In this study, which appears online in The European Journal of Applied Physiology, researchers tested eight healthy 25-year-olds. First, the subjects ate a no-fat 945-calorie breakfast and did no exercise afterward. A few days later, they ate a 940-calorie meal with 690 grams of fat. Again, they did not exercise. Finally, they ate the same high-fat meal, but two hours later they did a brisk 45-minute walk on a treadmill. Flow mediated dilation was measured before and four hours after each regimen.

Read the entire article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/05/health/05exer.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Learn more about the Department of Kinesiology at: http://www.indiana.edu/~kines/

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