High-fat diet effects on metabolic responses to chronic stress

Abstract

Context: High-fat diets and chronic stress are prevalent risk factors for various chronic diseases in modern societies.

Objective: This study investigated the effect of high-fat diet on glucose-related metabolic responses to chronic foot-shock stress.

Materials and methods: Male rats were divided into high-fat diet (containing 54.21% saturated and 44.89% unsaturated fatty acids) and normal diet groups and then into stress and non-stress subgroups. The diets were applied for 5 weeks, and stress was induced during the last week of the diet course. Plasma levels of metabolic parameters, HOMA-IR index, intra-abdominal fat weight, and islets’ insulin secretion were assessed.

Results: High-fat diet increased abdominal fat weight and plasma leptin, and insulin levels in response to stress without affecting HOMA-IR index and islets’ insulin secretion.

Conclusions: High proportion of unsaturated fat may not lead to deleterious metabolic responses; however combined with chronic stress has a synergistic and adverse effect on visceral adiposity and results in elevated plasma leptin.

Keywords:

• Corticosterone
• intra-abdominal cow fat
• leptin
• free fatty acids
• pancreatic-isolated islets

Acknowledgements

This article has been extracted from the thesis written by Mrs. Marzieh Nemati in School of Medicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences (Registration No: 235). This work was supported by a grant (No: 658) from Neuroscience Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences. The authors would like to express their gratitude to Mr. Bahman Pasha for his help in preparing high-fat diet.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. This work was supported by a grant (No: 658) from Neuroscience Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences.