Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Artigo Produção Nacional Revisado por pares

BIBTEX RIS

Early Exposure to a High-Fat Diet has more Drastic Consequences on Metabolism Compared with Exposure During Adulthood in Rats

2012; Thieme Medical Publishers (Germany); Volume: 44; Issue: 06 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1055/s-0032-1306300

1439-4286

Luiz F. Barella, Júlio Cézar de Oliveira, Renato Chaves Souto Branco, Ricardo Camargo, Rodrigo Mello Gomes, Fagner Cordeiro Vilar Mendes, Rosiane Aparecida Miranda, Clarice Gravena, Rosana Torrezan, Sabrina Grassiolli, Paulo Cézar de Freitas Mathias,

Neuropeptides and Animal Physiology

The aim of this study was determine whether the introduction of a high-fat diet during the peripubertal phase induces significant changes in body weight control, glucose homeostasis and the parasympathetic tonus compared with the administration of this diet to adult rats. High-fat diet was offered to male Wistar rats at weaning or during adulthood. A group of rats received high-fat diet for 60 days, from weaning to 81-day-old (HF81) or from 60 to 120-day-old (HF120), whereas 2 other groups received a normal-fat diet (i. e., NF81 and NF120). We analyzed adiposity, glucose homeostasis, insulin sensitivity, and vagal nerve activity. High-fat diet increased the accumulation of adipose tissue in all of the rats, but the difference was greater in the rats that were fed the high-fat diet since weaning (p<0.001). The HF rats showed glucose intolerance with high levels of insulin secretion during the glucose tolerance test (p<0.01). Rats that were fed the high-fat diet presented severe insulin resistance, indicated by a low K itt (p<0.01). Interestingly, the HF81 rats exhibited greater insulin resistance compared with the HF120 rats (p<0.05). The recordings of vagus nerve activity showed that the HF rats had higher parasympathetic activity than the NF rats irrespective of age (p<0.01). Our results show that a high-fat diet offered to rats just after weaning or in adulthood both cause impairment of glycemic homeostasis and imbalance in parasympathetic activity. Importantly, the consumption of high-fat diet immediately after weaning has more drastic consequences compared with the consumption of the same diet during adulthood.