High fat diets to obtain an experimental model of obesity in rat

ALFONSO, J.O; NAVIGATORE FONZO, L.S.; LÓPEZ, M.; CARGNELUTTI, E.; ANZULOVICH, A. C.

Congreso; XXXV Reunión Cinetìfica Anual de la Sociedad de Biología de Cuyo; 2017

HIGH FAT DIETS TO OBTAINAN EXPERIMENTAL MODEL OF OBESITY IN RATObesity is one of the major risk factors for diabetes, hypertension and arterosclerosis. In order to design a diet on a chronobiological basis for obesity treatment in the future, we first worked on obtaining an animal experimental model of obesity, as consequence of high-fat diet exposure. The objetive of this work was to investigate the effects of high unsaturated and saturated fat diets on different anthropometric parameters in Holtzman rats. The animal weaned at 21 day age were randomly separated and fed two types of diet for 4 weeks: one group was fed with normocaloric diet (ND group) and another group with high unsaturateed fat diet (F1D group). From the fifth week, the F1D group received a diet based on high saturated fat (F2D group) for 2 weeks. Rats were maintained under 12 h-light:12 h-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 consumtion 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 insignificant differences in the final weight/initial weight index as well as in the weight gain/dietary consumption index, in comparation to the ND. Thus, a diet based on saturated fats is more effective for the development of obesity in this animal model.