Metabolic effects of a cafetería diet and its withdrawal and responses to a blackberry supplement in rats.

Resumen

Conditions related to eating habits are known to increase the risk of developing overweight and obesity. To understand these conditions, an experimental diet, named cafeteria diet (CD), was proposed to simulate the process humans became obese. Moreover, there are several natural products related to improvements in health such as blackberries that are rich in anthocyanins. We aim to investigate the effect of a CD given to female and male rats during 90 days and after a wash out period of 110 days. Additionally, we investigated the effects of an extract of blackberries (Rubus) on specific metabolic parameters in rats fed standard diet (SD) and CD. In both experiments, we collected plasma, liver and adipose tissue. Lipid and glucose metabolism parameters were analyzed. The effects of CD were more striking in female than in male rats and disappear after the wash out period. Rubus reduced body and liver weight and plasma insulin level mainly in females fed SD. It enhanced adipose tissue lipolytic activity and modified fatty acid profile in liver with changes in desaturase activities. These effects are lower in males and completely disappear in animals fed with the CD possibly due to a very high insulin resistance