According to recent research, even short-term exposure to a high-fat diet might cause pain

A high-fat diet is a dietary pattern that includes a higher intake of fats compared to the intake of carbohydrates and proteins. This type of diet has been popularized in recent years due to its potential benefits for weight loss and improved blood sugar control. Some people may choose to follow a high-fat diet as part of a low-carbohydrate eating plan, such as the ketogenic diet. However, it is important to note that following a high-fat diet may also increase the risk of certain health conditions, such as heart disease and high cholesterol. It is always important to talk to a healthcare provider before making any significant changes to your diet.

The University of Texas at Dallas researchers have discovered that short-term intake of a high-fat diet may be connected to pain perceptions, even in the absence of a previous injury or diseases like obesity or diabetes.

The results of two groups of mice were compared in the study, which was written up in Scientific Reports. A normal diet was provided to one group, while a high-fat diet that did not result in obesity or high blood sugar, both of which can induce diabetic neuropathy and other types of discomfort, was given to the other group.

The high-fat diet was found to cause allodynia, which is pain brought on by stimuli that ordinarily do not cause pain, and hyperalgesic priming, a neurological shift that symbolizes the transformation from acute to chronic pain.

"This study shows you don't need obesity to induce pain; you don't need diabetes; you don't even need a disease or injury at all," said Dr. Michael Burton, assistant professor of neuroscience in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences and the article's corresponding author. "Eating a high-fat diet for a brief time is sufficient—a diet comparable to what practically all of us in the U.S. eat at some point."

Additionally, the study contrasted obese, diabetic mice with those that had only undergone nutritional alterations.

Surprisingly, it became obvious that obesity or an underlying disease was not necessary. You only required the diet, according to Burton. This study is the first to show how a brief exposure to a high-fat diet can affect allodynia or chronic pain.

In particular, saturated fats, which have been shown to be to blame for an epidemic of obesity, diabetes, and related illnesses, are prevalent in Western diets. High levels of free fatty acids, which are circulating in the bloodstream in people who consume a lot of saturated fats like butter, cheese, and red meat, lead to systemic inflammation.

Recent research has demonstrated that these high-fat diets might exacerbate underlying illnesses or impede the healing of injuries, as well as increase existing mechanical pain sensitivity in the absence of obesity. However, no research have uncovered the mechanism by which high-fat meals alone can operate as a sensitising factor to trigger pain from non-painful stimuli, such as a gentle touch to the skin, according to Burton.

Burton stated, "We've observed in the past that, in models of diabetes or obesity, only a subset of individuals or animals exhibit allodynia, and if they do, it varies throughout a range, and it is not clear why." "We predicted that other precipitating factors had to exist."

The blood of the mice given the high-fat diet was examined by Burton and his team for the presence of saturated fatty acids. They discovered that the most prevalent saturated fatty acid in animals, palmitic acid, interacts to a specific receptor on nerve cells, causing inflammation and simulating damage to the neurons.

According to Burton, inflammation is being brought on by dietary metabolites before pathology even begins to take hold. "Diet alone produced signs of neuronal damage.

"How is it happening now that we know the sensory neurons are being affected? We found that the palmitic acid's sensitising action on those neurons is lost if the receptor it binds to is removed. That implies that it might be pharmacologically blocked.

The next step, according to Burton, will be on the neurons themselves, including how they function and how damage to them may be repaired. It is a component of a bigger initiative to comprehend how acute pain changes into chronic pain.

The opioid pandemic is being fueled by the existence of chronic pain, regardless of its source, therefore understanding the process underlying this change is crucial, according to him. "It would be very beneficial if we could find a technique to stop the progression from acute to chronic," said the researcher.

Burton expressed his hope that his study may persuade medical practitioners to think about how nutrition can affect pain.

We conduct study like this primarily in order to fully comprehend human physiology, he claimed. "Today, a clinician treats a symptom in a patient based on an underlying disease or condition when a patient visits them. Perhaps we should focus more on how the patient got there: Has a poor diet made them more sensitive to pain than they realised? Does the patient have inflammation brought on by diabetes, obesity, or other conditions? That would be a paradigm shift.”

Reference: “High-fat diet causes mechanical allodynia in the absence of injury or diabetic pathology” by Jessica A. Tierney, Calvin D. Uong, Melissa E. Lenert, Marisa Williams and Michael D. Burton, 1 September 2022, Scientific Reports.

DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-18281-x