A diet high in saturated fat can cloud your resolve to control what you eat, a preliminary study says.

One of the tools that people can use in their effort to lose weight is their ability to think clearly about food, but a research team in Italy says that their animal study shows consuming saturated fat can interfere with such thought processes.

Their study found, through tests in rats, that a meal rich in saturated fat, reduces a person's cognitive function that make it more difficult to control eating habits.

A diet rich in fat can take different forms and in fact, there are different types of fats. Saturated fats are found in lard, butter or fried food. Unsaturated fats are rich in food such as fish, avocado or olive oil.

Consuming fish oil instead of lard makes a significant difference. The research shows that brain function remains normal and manages to restrain from eating more than necessary, the researchers say.

On the other hand, consuming a meal rich in saturated fat resulted in inflammation, which made it more difficult to control eating habits, they found.

“Our results suggest that being more aware about the type of fat consumed with the diet may reduce the risk of obesity and prevent several metabolic diseases,” says Marianna Crispino, a University of Naples professor involved in the study, which appears in Frontiers of Cellular Neuroscience.