Diabetics could suffer worse inflammation due to fatty foods

Researchers have claimed that patients with type 2 diabetes could suffer from worse inflammation, a condition associated with a range of diabetes-related problems, if they eat high-fat meals, indicating one reason why both obesity and type 2 diabetes can lead to inflammatory damage in blood vessels and other tissues.
The study monitored the effects of consuming a fatty meal after fasting overnight on 54 participants, who were either obese, had pre-diabetes, type 2 diabetes or were healthy and not obese. It compared levels of endotoxins – bacterial fragments that enter the bloodstream from the gut and are linked with inflammation and heart disease – before and after the meal, with all seen to have higher endotoxin levels after eating the fatty meal but with type 2 diabetics being shown to have substantially higher levels than the healthy and non-obese participants.
Lead researcher Alison Harte, from the University of Warwick, commented “High-fat, low-carbohydrate diets are often promoted to patients with type 2 diabetes as they have been suggested to aid weight loss and control blood sugar, but if confirmed in larger studies, our data show that being healthy is not just about losing weight, as these particular diets could increase inflammation in some patients and with it the risk of heart disease.”