Sleeve Gastrectomy Reversed Obesity-Induced Hypogonadism in a Rat Model by Regulating Inflammatory Responses in the Hypothalamus and Testis

Abstract

Obesity is a metabolic disease with a serious health burden in children and adults, and it induces a variety of conditions including subfecundity. Sleeve gastrectomy showed encouraging results in terms of weight loss and improve quality of life, and this study aimed to determine whether sleeve gastrectomy could reverse obesity-induced impaired fertility in male Sprague-Dawley rats. After 16weeks of a chow diet (CD) or a high-fat diet (HFD) challenge, rats on the HFD were given a sleeve gastrectomy or sham operation and then fed an HFD for another 8weeks. Serum glucose, insulin, lipids, sex hormone, sperm quality, inflammatory profile of the testis, and hypothalamic Kiss1 expression in the three study groups were compared. Sleeve gastrectomy significantly decreased HFD-induced obesity and serum glucose and insulin levels. It also reversed the HFD-induced increase in teratozoospermia and decreases in sperm motility and progressive motility. Testicular morphological abnormalities were also improved after sleeve gastrectomy. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay showed that the expression of sex hormones increased after sleeve gastrectomy and that expression of inflammatory factors decreased. The HFD induced a hypothalamic inflammatory response that inhibited Kiss1 expression, which in turn mediated sex hormone expression. Sleeve gastrectomy treatment improved the hypothalamic response. The results consistently showed that sleeve gastrectomy reversed obesity-induced male fertility impairment by decreasing the inflammatory responses of the testis and hypothalamus.