Does High Fat Diet have the Stress-Like Effect on Animals?

Abstract

The increment of high fat ingestion appears to be one of the compensatory behaviors adopted by the contemporary society to reduce the social stress effects. The release of glucocorticoids, a common physiological response, was shown to contribute to the development of stress-associated diseases. So, this study aimed to verify the effect of high fat intake and social stress on metabolic profile and stress response. We also verify if high fat food and stress affect mitochondrial homeostasis. Rats were divided into: control (without social stress) (C) and experimental (with social stress) (ST) groups. Then, groups were subdivided into two: one group received common laboratory chow (NF), as the other had highfat food added to the laboratory chow (HF). Food intake, corticosterone metabolites, mitochondria integrity, body and adrenal weight were assessed. The social isolation and high fat did not affect the adrenal and body weight, and mitochondria integrity; however, corticosterone metabolites and caloric intake were increased in ST-HF and C-HF when compared to C-NF and ST-NF groups. The present findings suggest that high fat administration increases caloric intake, corticosterone levels and that could have cumulative damaging effects along with changes in metabolic profile. Thus, high corticostone levels, mainly associated with high fat and caloric intake, might also predict metabolic diseases development.