The result of the study will be available in the August 15 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Stephen J. Nicholls, MB, BS, PhD, now a cardiologist at Cleveland Clinic in Ohio said, "The take-home, public-health message is this: It's further evidence to support the need to aggressively reduce the amount of saturated fat consumed in the diet."
Reuters said Nicholls and his colleagues fed two meals of carrot cake and a milkshake to 14 volunteers aged between 18 and 40. Although the two meals seems similar, one set was high in coconut oil, a saturated fat, while the other was high in safflower oil, a healthier polyunsaturated fat.
The researchers were shocked when after three hours the volunteers who were given the saturated fat, they noticed the endothelium lining their blood vessels was less able to expand the arteries to enable it to increase blood flow.
The same observation was noticed to the group given the polyunsaturated meal but the results were not statistically significant, Nicholls said.
After six hours, the high density lipoprotein, the HDL or "good cholesterol, ability to control inflammation inside arteries were lessened among the group which was fed with saturated fat meal. Inflammation is linked with heart disease.
However, the the polyunsaturated meal seemed to increase the anti-inflammatory abilities of HDL.
He concluded, "It is a small study, but I think the findings have broad implication because diet and exercise are the cornerstones of all strategies for preventing heart disease."
