Was Morgan Spurlock wrong?

A month-long junk food binge featured in documentary film Super Size Me has been recreated by scientists - and given them a big surprise.

Many of the healthy twentysomething students showed very little change in the amount of cholesterol and fatty chemicals swimming around in their blood after stuffing as much as 6,000 calories per day.

And some put on much less weight than expected - even though all their meals had to come from fast food outlets such as McDonald's.

The 18 volunteers - twelve men and six women - were allowed breakfast at home but it had to be a large bacon-and-eggs meal. Exercise was totally ruled out.

After a month the students gained between 5-15% extra weight. But none of the students reported Super Size Me maker Morgan Spurlock's "mood swings" or liver damage.

Professor Fredrik Nystrom, who led the research at Linkoping University in Sweden, is puzzled about why Spurlock had such an extreme reaction - musing he could perhaps have had an undiagnosed problem with his liver.

Even if he was, I don't think we'll be hearing much about it.