The starch-rich diet causes lipidemia while the fat-rich diet induces visceral adiposity, meta-inflammation, and insulin resistance differentially in immune biased mouse strains

Abstract

Metabolic disorders are a prime global threat, primarily aided by consuming excess carbohydrate or fat-rich diet. Being related to a chronic inflammatory state, metabolic disorders may have a difference in pathophysiology; like adiposity and insulin resistance (IR), based on the individual immune status. Thus, we aim to explore the effects of different diets on the development of adiposity and IR under different immune backgrounds, using immune-biased mouse strains, BALB/c and C57BL/6. Mouse from each strain was randomly divided based on the diets like a) chow-fed control, b) non-resistant starch-rich, c) unsaturated fat-rich or d) saturated fat-rich groups, and observed for eight weeks, to evaluate the extent of various metabolic disease-related pathophysiology. Results revealed that the consumption of a) non-resistant starch-rich diet enhanced lipidemia, b) both the fat-rich diets enhanced visceral adiposity, and c) saturated fat-rich diet increased meta-inflammation. The extent of lipidemia and visceral adiposity were higher in C57BL/6 while the meta-inflammatory responses were higher in BALB/c. IR was severer in all the treatment diet groups of BALB/c mice compared to the control and corresponding C57BL/6 groups. Maximum IR was observed in the saturated fat-rich group which may have related to the intrinsic immune biases of the mice.