this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2025
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Science Memes

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YOLO (mander.xyz)
submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I did my masters thesis on high fat diets and while I was doing my lit review I realized there was no standard for what a "high fat diet" even is. There are SO many variables and its insane some of the logic leaps some studies come to to complete a narrative.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Out of curiosity, how did you decide to define it and why?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 day ago (2 children)

We used purified high fat diets, one at 40% and one at 60% and compared the two. We had a whole other project where each group were supplemented with lentils but we I focussed on just the difference between those two diets where the only variable between them were the carb/fat percentage, they were otherwise the same/pure.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That's interesting. Was compliance difficult? I work with dieticians, and they have all mentioned difficulty with compliance. Americans and food. 🤷‍♂️

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Compliance wasn't an issue since we we ran the study in mice and they all liked the food. they're all basically clones so so it helps eliminate a LOT of variables. As expected we found the 60% diet induced a much more dramatic phenotype than the 40% but both induced obesity in general, but even ONLY having 60 vs 40% fat the differences were significant enough to make me reluctant to compare the two HFDs especially when you dive into microbiota stuff. I wouldn't say its apples and oranges, more like apples and crab apples... or something.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Oh, ok. I just assumed a human study, but mice makes more sense. It certainly sounds like an interesting study. I find nutrition to be an engaging topic, especially considering the availability of choices that many have now. Thank you for answering my questions!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago

no worries, I love talking about work! Nutrition is especially interesting given how relevant it is in our day to day lives and how complicated everything is between food itself, genetics and our gut microbiome. I could read about it all day, and not because I had to for two years!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

So do you recommend a high fat diet?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

60% produced a more dramatic phenotype and I remember it being the most popular diet in animal studies (I did all this 10 years ago so the details are a little fuzzy) so I'd probably go with that one.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Can you explain what you mean by a more dramatic phenotype?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

In animal research we often refer to genotype and phenotype. Genotype refers to the set of genes the animals the animals carry (what they are capable of expressing) and phenotype refers to the physical/clinical expression/presentation/characteristics of the animal or disease state. My guys were all "wild type" meaning they're just "normal" standard mice and we induced the "obese phenotype" (obese disease state with the associated characteristics and physical presentation associated with the disease) with the two high fat diets. 60% had a greater impact on inducing these changes compared to the control group than the 40% group.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 hours ago

Ah thanks for the response!