A Brisk Walk Is the Perfect Complement to a High-Fat Meal

Writing in the New York Times Vital Signs column, Nicholas Bakalar directs our attention to research that suggests that exercising after a high-fat meal can significantly improve the ability of blood vessels to expand and contract,–a function that is ordinarily restricted by the intake of fats.
The Times reports that the study,
which appears online in The European Journal of Applied Physiology, tested eight healthy 25-year-olds. First, the subjects ate
a no-fat 945-calorie breakfast and did no exercise afterward. A few
days later, they ate a 940-calorie meal with 690 grams of fat. Again,
they did not exercise. Finally, they ate the same high-fat meal, but
two hours later they did a brisk 45-minute walk on a treadmill. Flow
mediated dilation was measured before and four hours after each regimen. Unsurprisingly,
Bakalar writes, flow mediated dilation was significantly lower after the high-fat meal, but when subjects exercised after the high-fat meal, the dilation was
even higher than after the low-fat meal. Read more in the New York Times.