EFFECTS OF HIGH FAT DIETS ON DIFFERENT ANTHROPOMETRIC PARAMETERS IN RAT

ALFONSO JO; NAVIGATORE FONZO LS; LOPEZ M; CARGNELLUTTI E; ANZULOVICH AC

MERLO, SAN LUIS

Congreso; XXXV REUNION CIENTIFICA ANUAL DE LA SOCIEDAD DE BIOLOGIA DE CUYO; 2017

Obesity is one of the major risk factors for other pathological disorders such as diabetes, hypertension and atherosclerosis. In order to design a diet on a chronobiological basis for obesity treatment in the future, we first work on obtaining an animal experimental model of obesity, as a consequence of a high-fat diet exposure. The objective of this work was to investigate the effects of high unsaturated and saturated fat diets on different anthropometric parameters in Holtzman rats. The animals weaned at 21d of age were randomly separated and fed two types of diet for 4 weeks: one group was fed with a normocaloric diet (ND group) and another group with a high unsaturated fat diet (F1D group). From the fifth week, the F1D group received a diet based on high saturated fats (F2D group) for 4 more weeks. Rats were maintained under 12h-light:12h-dark conditions. The anthropometric profile was evaluated according to the following parameters: food intake, body and fat weight, size and body mass index, final weight/initial weight and weight gain/dietary consumption indexes. Food intake, body weight and height were measured daily. Our results show that ND and F1D groups did not present significant differences in any of the studied parameters. However, modification of the F1D to the F2D diet resulted in significant differences in the final weight/initial weight index as well as in the weight gain/dietary consumption index, in comparison to the ND. Thus, we can conclude that a diet based on saturated fats is more effective for the development of obesity in this animal model.