Sex Differences in Obesity- and Aging-Mediated Increase of Body Weight and Blood Pressure

Abstract

The rate of obesity is steadily increasing world-wide, and obesity may predispose to chronic kidney disease (CKD) via direct pathway or through its complications such as hypertension. Furthermore, incidence of CKD is affected by aging and obesity accelerates aging especially in association with its complications. Specifically, the relationship between obesity and aging in controlling CKD progression has not been well-defined. To address this gap in knowledge, we generated a diet-induced obesity mouse model of 52-58-week-old animals and started the characterization of the model by measuring body weight and blood pressure in male and female mice. We studied four groups of mice: first and second groups were male mice, fed 60% high-fat (HF) diet or 10% low-fat (LH) diet for 19 weeks. Third and fourth groups were female mice, fed HF or LF diet for the same number of weeks. A gain in body weight was measured in male mice on HF when compared to male mice on LF diet and was associated with a significant diet-dependent increase (about 30%) in blood pressure. The body weight gain in female mice was more pronounced than in male mice (62% female vs. 54% male). The blood pressure was higher in female mice than in age-matched male mice in control conditions and was not affected by the diet. These findings suggest sex differences in the increase of body weight and blood pressure mediated by diet-induced obesity in mice of 52-58 weeks of age. In summary, our mouse model mimics the phenotype seen in humans and its characterization is valuable to aid the understanding of the relationship of determinants that control the progression of kidney diseases. Des Moines University IOER Research & Grant Award. This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2024 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.