THE guilt of tucking into a calorific Christmas dinner may be lessened by adding fish to the menu, according to new research.

Stirling University health and exercise scientists studied the body's capacity to cope with a bout of high-fat binge eating and found that fish oil provided some important protective qualities at the muscle level.

In the study, healthy young men swallowed a six-day, high fat diet, consuming around 4,000 calories each day - almost double the recommended intake for men. Half of the volunteers had a percentage of their fat intake replaced by salmon, mackerel and fish oils.

"The fish oil resulted in an increase of a protein which helps to break down fats within the muscle," said postgraduate research student Sophie Wardle, who led the study. "This suggests there may be some benefits to consuming more oily fish in place of other fats during periods of excess fat intake.

"Those who only had the high fat diet and no fish oil gained weight mainly around their stomach whereas those taking the fish oils gained weight in different areas. This finding could be relevant for long term risk as fat accumulation in the central stomach area is strongly associated with obesity and diabetes."

Ms Wardle gathered data from full body composition scans, blood samples and muscle biopsies before presenting the findings to the American Diabetes Association.