Dietary Supplementation with olive oil to pregnant dams with T1D reduces predisposition to T2D in male offspring

CHANG Y, CAPOBIANCO E, JAWERBAUM A, ARANY E.

Budapest

Congreso; 46th Annual Meeting, Diabetes and Pregnancy Study Group (DPSG), EASD; 2014

DPSG

Maternal type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) impacts fetal development and results in glucose intolerance later in life. Previous research in our laboratory, has shown that dietary supplementation with 6% olive oil (enriched with 34% oleic acid) given during pregnancy to diabetic rats increased the numbers of term births and decreased neonatal malformations by reducing the inflammatory intrauterine environment. This was mediated through the activation of PPARs, nuclear receptors essential for placental development embryonic stem cell proliferation and implantation. Diets enriched in oleic acid has been shown to lower LDL and total cholesterol levels, and it has beneficial effects in terms of blood sugar control as well as reducing insulin resistance. In this study we examined its effects on neonatal pancreatic development and its impacts in early adulthood. T1DM was rendered by injecting rats with either streptozotocin (90 mg/kg) diluted with fresh citrate buffer or citrate buffer alone at 2 days after birth. Females with glycemia lower than 130 mg/ml were mated with normal male rats and at gestation day 0.5 were fed with control chow diet (D), diet supplemented with 6% olive oil (DO). A control non-diabetic group fed with (C) and (CO) was also studied. Body weight, pancreas weight, fasting glycemia and pancreas were collected at day 2 and 4 months of age. Differences in body and pancreas weight between all groups were not statistically significant. However, fasting glycemia was higher in the D and similar to C in the DO. Dual immunohistochemistry was performed to detect alpha and beta cells in islets and morphometric analysis was carried out to study islet area, beta and alpha cell area, beta cell mass and islet distribution by size. Immunofluorescence was carried out in order to detect the presence of PPARs in the pancreas. Our data showed that the percentage of islet area, beta and alpha cell area and beta cell mass at day 2 postnatal was not statistically significant between all groups. However at 4 months we showed that olive oil supplementation had a restorative effect on islet and beta cell area, as well as beta cell mass with a significant increase (p lower than 0.05) in the number of large islets and beta cell clusters. PPARalpha was detected in islets and were co-localized to alpha cells. Therefore, we conclude that olive oil, by increasing islet area, beta cell mass, number of islets and beta cell clusters is potentially delaying the onset of type 2 diabetes.