University of British Columbia researchers investigated how polyunsaturated fatty acids or PUFA can cause laziness and diabetes on women. Sonja Ghosh, UBC professor, and Jason Pither, UBC biologist and data analyst conducted the study.

Polyunsaturated fatty acids or PUFA come from corn, soybeans, margarine and sunflower. PUFA comes in two types, the n-3 PUFA and n-6 PUFA. These unsaturated fatty acids are needed for humans to survive as long as the amount consumed is almost the same.

The researchers found that fatty acids in cooking oil can cause laziness and diabetes especially among women. The culprit is the polyunsaturated fatty acids present mostly in "convenience" foods such as chips, fries, candy bars and crackers.

However, current lifestyles result to very high consumption of n-6 PUFA, which comes from 'convenience" foods that people usually consume. Previous study showed that too much consumption of n-6 PUFA can make people lazy and be prone to diabetes, the UBC Okanagan News reported.

For their investigation, the two UBC researchers used data on preteen girls and adult women from 21 European countries. Factors such as length of time spent watching TV, urbanization and GDP were considered. People who live in countries that are urbanized and with high GDP are those that usually consume "convenience" foods.

They found out that preteen girls whose diet is high on PUFA tended to lead sedentary lives. However, PUFA was found to have weak relationship with diabetes among adult women. This means that consumption of n-6 PUFA strongly affects their drive to exercise. Instead, they prefer a sedentary way of life, the Daily Science reported.

The result was similar to the findings when n-6 PUFA was given to mice. After consuming large amount of n-6 PUFA, they showed lazy behavior.

Further, the findings imply that even an excellent exercise regimen might fail to bring positive results when consumption of foods rich in n-6 PUFA remains uncontrolled.