Interesting study on saturated fat and insulin sensitivity

[Guest guest]

I found this abstract while looking for studies on saturated fat and insulin

sensitivity:

http://shorl.com/fegedrevolovy

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve & db=pubmed & dopt=Ab

stract & list_uids=12145222 & query_hl=9 & itool=pubmed_DocSum

To summarize, researchers conducted a study involving three controlled

four-week diets. The diets were 57/28/15 (carbohydrate/fat/protein), and

each was enriched with 9% palmitic acid, 9% oleic acid, or 9% elaidic acid.

Interestingly, the palmitic acid diet was associated with a 24% reduction in

insulin sensitivity (that's bad) only in overweight subjects.

It's important not to generalize to broadly from a single study, especially

without reading the whole thing, but if we take this at face value, it

suggests that increasing dietary saturated fat, at least in the context of a

high-carbohydrate diet, decreases insulin sensitivity, but only in

overweight individuals.

To the extent that the epidemiological studies purporting to find an

association between dietary saturated fat and chronic disease are valid, I

wonder if this association might be due to the mechanism at play here. Does

anyone here have more information on any link between dietary saturated fat

and insulin resistance, or any ideas about why it might show up only in

overweight subjects?

Thanks.