High-fat diets are bad for health and immunity

Even vegetable fats, if consumed regularly and over a long period of time, can cause health problems such as colon cancer, obesity, irritable bowel disease, as well as negatively affect the immune system, brain function, and increase the risk of contracting coronavirus. A paper on this was published in Nature.

The conclusions were made after an experiment conducted by American scientists on mice.

They were divided into 3 groups and put on high-fat diets (40% of all calories). The first group was fed coconut oil, the second group was fed monounsaturated modified soybean oil, and the third group was fed unmodified soybean oil high in polyunsaturated fats. The experiment lasted six months, after which the scientists studied the microbiome of the mice and checked whether there were genetic changes in all four parts of the gut.

As a result, it was found that the mice had disrupted genes of the immune system, suppressed Bacteroides, which help protect the body from pathogens, increased the number of pathogenic E. coli, strongly changed genes related to fat metabolism. Expression of ACE2 and other host proteins used by COVID to enter the body has increased.