Ability of dairy fat in inducing metabolic syndrome in rats

Elham Ehrampoush, Reza Homayounfar, Sayed Hossein Davoodi, Hamid Zand, Alireza Askari, Seyed Amin Kouhpayeh

The risk of heart diseases, diabetes and stroke is increased with higher metabolic risk factors. Models of diseases resulting from high-calorie diets have a significant role in pathophysiologic analysis of metabolic syndrome in rodents; but, these diets are considerably different from each other in various studies and may not be very similar to the metabolic syndrome model in humans. This study sought to make a model close to the disease in humans. 20 five-week old male Wistar rats were randomly assigned to two groups. For one of the groups, a high-calorie diet with 416 calories per 100 g with dairy-based fat was considered and, for another group, a control diet was given for 12 weeks. Weight changes, lipid profile, glucose values, Blood pressure, insulin and HOMA indices, were measured for both groups and weight changes were compared using repeated measures and independent t test; also, serum results were compared using independent t test. Values of weight, glucose, insulin, lipid profile and blood pressure, except HDL, had a tangible difference between two groups at the end of the study. HOMA-IR, HOMA-B and HOMA-S indicates a significant difference between the two groups after consumption high-energy diet. The present study showed ability of dairy fat in gaining weight, insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome and provided the necessity of paying serious attention to the amount of fat intake from dairy sources.