Abstract
The impact of dietary soybean oil, lard and fish oil on physiological responses in middle age is little studied. In this study, we investigated the changes of oxidative stress, inflammatory cytokines, telomere length, and age-related gene expression in the liver of middle-aged rats in response to the above three fat diets. Male Sprague Dawley rats (12 months old) were fed AIN-93M diets for 3 months, in which soybean oil was equivalently replaced by lard or fish oil. As compared to the lard diet, intake of fish oil diet significantly decreased body weight gain, white blood cell count, and levels of hepatic triacylglycerol, total cholesterol, fat accumulation, low-density lipoprotein, oxidative stress and inflammatory cytokines (P < 0.05), but increased telomere length (P < 0.05). On the other hand, lard diet and soybean oil diet showed great similarity in the above variables. PCR array analysis further indicated that fish oil diet significantly down-regulated gene expression related to inflammatory response, apoptosis, DNA binding, proteostasis and telomere attrition. Differentially expressed genes were enriched in the complement and coagulation cascades pathways. Such physiological and molecular responses could be due to different fatty acid composition in fish oil, lard and soybean oil.
Highlights
Fat is an important component of human diet and its nutritional value is largely dependent on the fatty acid composition[1]
N-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) have anti-oxidative activity because NF-κB pathway can be inhibited by eicosahexaenoic acid (EPA), docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and their metabolites[7]
Histological observations with Oil Red O staining indicated that the quantity and size of hepatic fat droplets in the lard group were greater than those in the soybean oil and fish oil groups (Fig. 1a–c)
Summary
Fat is an important component of human diet and its nutritional value is largely dependent on the fatty acid composition[1]. Fatty acid composition in fat diets has been shown associated with oxidation and inflammation. Oxidative stress has been recognized as a critical contributor to many physiological changes, in particular to the aging process[15, 16], which is characterized as a chronic and subclinical inflammatory state[17]. Middle age is an earlier stage of the aging process, during which gradual physical changes and some chronic illness may occur[19]. Few data are available on the impact of dietary fats on physiological responses at middle ages. To this end, we investigated how intake of soybean oil, lard and fish oil affected oxidative and inflammatory status, age-related gene expression, telomere length and other related parameters of middle-aged rats.
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