Abstract
Medium Chain Triglycerides (MCT) is a dietary supplement and usually used along with medications for treating food absorption disorders including diarrhea, steatorrhea and liver disease. It has been shown that MCT plays a role in lowering weight, and decreasing metabolic syndrome, abdominal obesity and inflammation. However, it is still unknown whether MCT enhances exercise endurance. Here, we demonstrated that MCT containing diet improves high temperature induced exercise performance impairment. We found that MCT up-regulates the expression and protein levels of genes involved in mitochondrial biogenesis and metabolism. Further investigation demonstrated that the increased mitochondrial biogenesis and metabolism is mediated through the activation of Akt and AMPK signaling pathways and inhibition of TGF-β signaling pathway. Collectively, our findings indicate a beneficial effect of dietary MCT in exercise performance through the increase of mitochondrial biogenesis and metabolism.
Highlights
Medium-chain triglycerides (MCT) is triglycerides composed of a glycerol backbone and three fatty acids that have an aliphatic tail of 6–12 carbon atoms
We showed that the exercise performance is significantly decreased in high temperature environment, while mice fed with MCT containing diet have much better performance compared to the regular chow diet fed mice (Fig 1C)
We demonstrated that MCT improves high temperature induced defect in exercise performance and skeletal muscle function in mice
Summary
Medium-chain triglycerides (MCT) is triglycerides composed of a glycerol backbone and three fatty acids that have an aliphatic tail of 6–12 carbon atoms. Unlike long chain triglycerides (LCT), MCT will be broken down into glycerol and MCFAs, which will be directly absorbed into the blood stream and thereby transported to the target organs [1]. The effects of MCT in energy expenditure, food consumption, and fat deposition have been well investigated [2]. A number of studies support the use of MCT as a supplement for weight loss [3]. Studies in both human and rodents have shown that oxidation of MCFA that hydrolyzed from MCT induces weight loss through increasing energy expenditure and fat oxidation and helping in the process of excess calorie burning [2,4,5].
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