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Nature Medicine 13, 1137 - 1138 (2007)
doi:10.1038/nm1007-1137

It's what you do with the fat that matters!

Clinton R Bruce1 & Mark A Febbraio1

  1. Clinton R. Bruce and Mark A. Febbraio are in the Cellular and Molecular Metabolism Laboratory, Diabetes and Metabolism Division, Baker Heart Research Institute, Melbourne, Victoria 3004, Australia. e-mail: mark.febbraio@baker.edu.au


Obesity and a diet rich in saturated fatty acids can lead to high lipid levels in the liver and insulin resistance. However, inhibition of a key enzyme that elongates long-chain saturated fatty acids can protect against insulin resistance in fatty livers, even with concurrent obesity (pages 1193–1202).


The Greenland Inuit have traditionally eaten a diet high in fat and low in vegetables, and they have the same rates of obesity as people in industrialized Western countries. Mysteriously, though, obese Inuit tend to be healthier than their counterparts in Western cultures1, 2.

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