A team of Quebec researchers may have just found a way for you to be able to eat all the sugar and fat you could ever want and not have to worry about all that pesky weight gain associated with the not-so-healthy diet.
Teams with the Université Laval and the Quebec Heart and Lung Institute Research Centre found that extract of camu camu, a fruit native to the Amazon, prevents obesity in mice fed a diet rich in sugar and fat.
The findings were recently published in the scientific journal Gut.
The researchers split mice into three groups. One group was fed the high sugar/fat diet and given the camu camu extract, a second was used as the control, consuming the same diet rich in sugar and fat without the extract, a third was fed a low-sugar/low-fat diet.
Over the eight week test period the researchers found the camu camu treated mice had a 50 per cent lower amount of weight gain than the mice in the control group. Their weight gain was actually similar to the group with the low-sugar, low-fat diet.
If you're asking 'how could this be?' Researchers said it could be explained by the increased resting metabolism in the mice receiving the extract.
The camu camu has nearly 30 times more vitamin C than a kiwi and five times more polyphenols than blackberries, which researchers had already demonstrated the benefits of polyphenol-rich berries in previous studies.
"That's what gave us the idea to test the effects of camu camu on obesity and metabolic disease," said André Marette, a professor at Université Laval's Faculty of Medicine and principal investigator for the study.
The effects of the super fruit extract did not end there.
Researchers also found the camu camu improved glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity, and reduced the concentration of blood endotoxins and metabolic inflammation.
The next step for Marette and her team, see if the same results can be produced in humans.
Camu camu extract is already sold commercially as a way of fighting fatigue and stress, and as a way to stimulate the immune system.