Eating a high-fat diet in your 20s makes increases heart disease risk

How a poor diet in your 20s lasts for life: People who eat more fat when they’re young ‘face diabetes and heart disease risk as they age’

  • Researchers at Qingdao University, China, studied 217 healthy 18 to 35-year olds
  • Found that those with lower-fat diets had better microbiomes than their peers
  • Experts say this is a warning for Asian whose where dietary habits are changing

Eating a high-fat diet in your 20s and 30s heightens the risk of ill-health later on – and not just because of weight gain.

According to researchers at Qingdao University, China, fatty foods cause a reduction in, and mutation of, so-called ‘good’ bacteria in the gut.

Specifically, an unhealthy diet modifies microbiomes – which break down food in the stomach – and sparks a rise in inflammatory markers throughout the body.

The data, published online in the journal Gut, raises fears this could sow the seeds of metabolic disorders, such as diabetes, heart disease and stroke, over the long term. 

Taste test: Researchers at Qingdao University, China, studied 217 healthy 18 to 35-year olds

The researchers set out to see if different levels of dietary fat alter gut bacteria in healthy young adults from China.

Dietary habits in the Asian country are moving from being low-fat, high-carb to relatively high in fat and low in carbohydrates.

The researchers divided 217 healthy 18 to 35-year-olds of normal weight into three dietary groups.

The participants then received different ratios of carbs – white rice and wheat – and fat – mainly soybean oil.

Fibre and protein intake was kept the same between all the participants.


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The three end diets were either low fat, where lipids made up 20 per cent of the participants’ energy intake.

Moderate fat – equal to 30 per cent of energy intake – or high fat – where lipids accounted for 40 per cent of energy intake.

Each participant stuck to their particular diet for six months.

Its impact on their gut bacteria and inflammatory markers was assessed in blood and faecal samples taken at the start and end of the experiment.

After six months, participants in all three groups lost weight, with those on the low-fat diet shedding the most. 

But certain changes, with potential implications for long-term heath, were only evident in the samples from the high-fat group.

Warning: The data, published online in the journal Gut, fears this can sow the seeds of metabolic disorders, such as diabetes, heart disease and strokes over the long term

Although there were no major changes in the overall volume of gut bacteria among the three groups, the number of beneficial bacteria that produce short-chain fatty acids, including butyrate, only increased in the low-fat diet group. 

By contrast, the numbers of these beneficial bacteria fell in the high-fat group.

And the number of ‘bad’ bacteria found in the guts of people with type 2 diabetes, for example, had increased.

Statins ‘should be given to 100,000 more in middle age’ 

By Kate Pickles, Health Correspondent

Health chiefs want statins prescribed to 100,000 more middle-aged people to reduce risk of heart attacks and strokes.

New targets have been launched by a coalition of organisations to improve detection and treatment of atrial fibrillation, high blood pressure and high cholesterol – three conditions that are among the major causes of cardiovascular disease and responsible for a quarter of early deaths in the UK.

Led by NHS England and Public Health England, the targets suggest the number of people deemed at high risk of cardiovascular disease and being treated with statins – which reduce levels of harmful cholesterol associated with heart attacks and strokes – should rise from 35 to 45 per cent – from 400,000 to 500,000 people – by 2029.

Duncan Selbie, chief executive of PHE, said: ‘Prevention is always better than cure’. Health bosses said they will encourage local authorities to promote the NHS Health Check, a national programme offered to all 40- to 74-year-olds every five years. The check-up involves assessment of cardiovascular risk factors, such as blood pressure, blood glucose and cholesterol.

The new coalition is made up of more than 40 organisations, including the British Heart Foundation, Stroke Association and several universities.

Certain bacteria, such as Blautia species – which are associated with lower cholesterol levels – were abundant among those on the low-fat diet. 

Bacteroides species, which are associated with elevated cholesterol levels, were more common among those on the high-fat diet.

What’s more, the higher-fat diet was associated with significant and potentially detrimental changes in long chain fatty acid metabolism.

This resulted in higher levels of chemicals that are thought to trigger inflammation. 

The opposite was true for the low-fat diet.

The researchers emphasise sampling was only done at the start and end of the trial.

And a more complete picture of microbial changes would have emerged with more frequent sampling.

As all three groups lost weight, it is also not entirely clear whether the weight loss prompted the changes seen, or vice versa.

And as the participants were all young, healthy and a normal weight, the findings might not be more widely applicable, they add.

But the findings do seem to illustrate the need to curb dietary fat, the scientists suggest.

‘Compared with a lower fat diet, long-term consumption of a higher fat diet appears to be undesirable….for young healthy adults whose diet is in transition from the traditionally consumed lower fat, higher carbohydrate diet to one characterised by an appreciably higher fat content,’ they concluded.

Their findings might also have implications for other countries. 

‘These findings might also have relevance in developed countries in which fat intake is already high,’ the researchers added.  

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