Researchers at the University of Georgia have found
that a high-fat diet enriched with cottonseed oil drastically improved
cholesterol profiles in young adult men.
The researchers conducted a five-day outpatient feeding trial of 15
healthy, normal weight men to test the effects of diets enriched with
cottonseed oil and olive oil on lipid profiles.
Participants showed significant reductions in cholesterol and
triglycerides in the cottonseed oil trial compared to minimal changes on
the olive oil-enriched diet.
The results appear in the journal Nutrition Research.
"One of the reasons these results were so surprising is because of
the magnitude of change observed with the cottonseed oil diet," said
Jamie Cooper, an associate professor in the UGA College of Family and
Consumer Sciences' department of foods and nutrition and the
corresponding author of the journal article. "To see this amount of
change in such a short period of time is exciting."
The subjects, all healthy men between the ages of 18 and 45, were
provided high-fat meals for five days in two separate, tightly
controlled trials, the only difference being the use of either
cottonseed oil or olive oil in the meals.
Participants showed an average decrease of 8 percent in total
cholesterol on the cottonseed oil diet, along with a 15 percent decrease
in low-density lipoprotein, or LDL (the "bad" cholesterol) and a 30
percent decrease in triglycerides.
This diet also increased high-density lipoproteins, or HDL (the "good" cholesterol) by 8 percent.
Researchers suggested a fatty acid unique to cottonseed oil,
dihydrosterculic acid, may help prevent the accumulation of
triglycerides, a type of fat, in the body.
"By doing that, it pushes the body to burn more of that fat because
it can't store it properly, so you have less lipid and cholesterol
accumulation," Cooper said.
That mechanism, in addition to the high polyunsatured fat and
omega-6 content of cottonseed oil, seems to be a key component to the
beneficial effects on lipid profiles, Cooper said.
Researchers plan to expand the study to include older adults with high cholesterol as well as a longer feeding intervention.
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