Sarah Graham in Scientific American:
Wallace H. Yokoyama of the United States Department of Agriculture and his colleagues fed a group of hamsters a diet with a fat content similar to that of typical American fast food–that is, with about 38 percent of its calories derived from fat–for four weeks. A second group of animals ate a low-fat diet with 11 percent of the total calories coming from fat. At the end of the study period, the high-fat eaters developed insulin resistance–a precursor to diabetes–whereas the control animals did not. The initial results corroborated previous findings in similar studies. But when the scientists repeated the experiment with the addition of a cellulose derivative known as hydroxypropylmethylcellulose (HPMC) to the high-fat food, the animals on that diet did not develop insulin resistance.
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