London: It sounds like a recipe for a heart attack, but junk food may actually be good for the heart if followed by a plateful of doughnuts, a study suggests.
Junk food lovers will be happy to know that fried foods like chips, bacon and doughnuts actually provide the best protection to the heart.
Research suggests that the odd greasy treat somehow boosts the heart muscle, reducing the amount of damage during a heart attack.
Unfortunately, doctors say that it is far too early to swap muesli topped with blueberries for a traditional English breakfast, according to the Daily Mail.
Study leader Lauren Haar, from the University of Cincinnati, said: "This shows that acute, or short-term, high-fat feeding in animal models does preserve cardiac function."
US researchers fed mice lard (pig fat) based and normal diet for periods of 24 hours to six weeks and then looked at how they fared when they had a heart attack.
Given the link between fatty food and heart disease, you might expect the lard-fed mice to have done the worst. Instead, those fed the fatty food for up to two weeks actually had the mildest heart attacks.
Most strikingly, those who were on the lard diet for just a day suffered heart attacks that were 70 percent smaller than those in the animals given normal food.
Co-researcher Jack Rubinstein, a heart disease expert, said: "Right now, after you have had a heart attack, they say to have a low-fat diet but we think that may be a little too draconian."
However, he warned that fatty foods` reputation for clogging arteries and causing heart attacks in the first place mean it is too early for people to start indulging.
IANS