What You Eat Before Surgery May Affect Your Recovery, Brigham and Women’s Hospital Study

According to a new study, the last few meals before surgery might make a difference in recovery after surgery. Fat tissue is one of the most dominant components that make up the body, and fat tissue is always traumatized during major surgery. Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) found that this direct trauma greatly impacts the chemical balance of fat tissue -- chemicals that are known to communicate with nearby and distant organs. In the study, mice that consumed a typical Western, high-fat diet showed an exaggerated imbalanced response. Importantly, restricting food intake to a lower-fat diet just a few weeks before surgery reduced the imbalance back toward a more normal response.

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