Effect of a 1-week, eucaloric, moderately high-fat diet on peripheral insulin sensitivity in healthy premenopausal women.

Objectives: To determine whether a weight-maintaining, moderate (50%) high-fat diet is deleterious to insulin sensitivity in healthy premenopausal women.

Design/setting/participants: 23 African-American and non-Hispanic white, healthy, overweight, and obese premenopausal women recruited in New York City, USA, fed either a eucaloric, 1-week long high-fat (50% of total Kcal from fat) diet or a eucaloric, 1-week long low-fat (30% of total Kcal from fat) diet, assigned in a randomized crossover design.

Main Outcome Measures: Peripheral insulin sensitivity and metabolic flexibility during a euglycemic hyperinsulinemic (80 mU/m(2)/min) clamp measured during the follicular phase of the menstrual cycle, at the end of each diet period.

Results: Peripheral insulin sensitivity (mg kg/fat-free mass/min (µU/mL)×10(-1)) was not decreased after the high-fat diet vs the low-fat diet (0.09±0.01 vs 0.08±0.01, p=0.09, respectively) in the combined group of African-American and white women, with no significant diet by race interaction (p=0.6). Metabolic flexibility (change in substrate utilization, ΔNPRQ, in response to insulin during the clamp) was similarly unaltered by the diet (0.12±0.01 vs 0.11, p=0.48, for the high-fat diet vs the low-fat diet, respectively) in the combined group of women, with no significant diet by race interaction (p=0.9). African-American women had a lower insulin clearance compared with the white women, regardless of the diet (p<0.05).

Conclusions: We conclude that a short term (1 week), moderate (50%), eucaloric high-fat diet does not lower peripheral insulin sensitivity in healthy, overweight and obese premenopausal women.