Washington DC, May 30 -- Researchers find high-fat diets set off metabolic dysfunction in cells, leading to weight gain, but these effects can be reversed by treatment with an antioxidant.

Consuming a high-fat diet can lead to a variety of health problems -- not only weight gain but also an increased risk of diabetes and other chronic diseases.

At the cellular level, hundreds of changes take place in response to a high-fat diet. MIT researchers have now mapped out some of those changes, with a focus on metabolic enzyme dysregulation that is associated with weight gain.

Their study, conducted in mice, revealed that hundreds of enzymes involved in sugar, lipid, and protein metabolism are affected by a high-fat diet, and that these disrup...