Cardiovascular and metabolic consequences of the association between chronic stress and high-fat diet in rats

Abstract

Obesity and chronic stress are considered independent risk factors for the development of cardiovascular diseases and changes in autonomic system activity. However, the cardiovascular consequences induced by the association between high-fat diet (HFD) and chronic stress are not fully understood. We hypothesized that the association between HFD and exposure to a chronic variable stress (CVS) protocol for four weeks might exacerbate the cardiovascular and metabolic disturbances in rats when compared to these factors singly. To test this hypothesis, male Wistar rats were divided into four groups: control-standard chow diet (SD; n = 8); control-HFD (n = 8); CVS-SD (n = 8); and CVS-HFD (n = 8). The CVS consisted of repeated exposure of the rats to different inescapable and unpredictable stressors (restraint tress; damp sawdust, cold, swim stress and light cycle inversion). We evaluated cardiovascular function, autonomic activity, dietary intake, adiposity and metabolism. The HFD increased body weight, adiposity and blood glucose concentration (∼15%) in both control and CVS rats. The CVS-HFD rats showed decreased insulin sensitivity (25%) compared to CVS-SD rats. The control-HFD and CVS-HFD rats presented increased intrinsic heart rate (HR) values (∼8%). CVS increased cardiac sympathetic activity (∼65%) in both SD- and HFD-fed rats. The HFD increased basal HR (∼10%). Blood pressure and baroreflex analyzes showed no differences among the experimental groups. In conclusion, the present data indicate absence of interaction on autonomic imbalance evoked by either CVS or HFD. Additionally, HFD increased HR and evoked metabolic disruptions which are independent of stress exposure.

Agonism for the bile acid receptor GPBAR1 reverses liver and vascular damage in a mouse model of steatohepatitis

“…7A (P , 0.05) show that Gpbar1 2/2 mice have a significantly higher SBP than their congenic littermates and that although feeding an HFD-F failed to modulate the SBP in wild-type mice, it slightly increased SBP in Gpbar1 2/2 mice. In addition, as reported by others (37), feeding an HFD-F resulted in a dramatic reduction of the diastolic blood pressure (DBP) that was only partially compensated for by an increased heart rate, as shown by analysis of mean arterial pressure, which remained below that of naive mice (P , 0.05) ( Fig. 7B-D).…”

Lonicera caerulea L. Polyphenols Alleviate Oxidative Stress‐Induced Intestinal Environment Imbalance and Lipopolysaccharide‐Induced Liver Injury in HFD‐Fed Rats by Regulating the Nrf2/HO‐1/NQO1 and MAPK Pathways

“…[ 26 ] The enhanced consumption of HFD directly leads to obesity. [ 33 ] The consumption of HFD is one of the main causes of OSD, [ 34 ] which can lead to various pathological symptoms, such as increased bodyweight and colon shortening in rats. [ 35‐37 ] In this study, HFD‐induced OSD rats exhibited a marked increase in bodyweight and a marked decrease in the colon length after consumption of HFD for 8 weeks.…”

The Good, the Bad and the Unknown Aspects of Ghrelin in Stress Coping and Stress-Related Psychiatric Disorders

“…Exposure to CUMS, which utilizes a battery of different stressors over a time course of several weeks, relatively consistently led to decreases in food intake (Patterson et al, 2010;Yao et al, 2016;He et al, 2018;Yan et al, 2018) and body weight in mice and rats (Forbes et al, 1996;Harris et al, 1997;Patterson et al, 2010;Lopez Lopez et al, 2018;Simas et al, 2018;Yan et al, 2018;Li et al, 2019;Yun et al, 2020). A few studies reported decreases in body weight or body weight gain, while food intake was not significantly altered (Harris et al, 1997;Lopez Lopez et al, 2018;Simas et al, 2018). Only one study found an increase in daily chow consumption and no differences in body weight between CUMS and non-CUMS mice after eight weeks of stress exposure (Huang et al, 2017).…”

“…Only one study found an increase in daily chow consumption and no differences in body weight between CUMS and non-CUMS mice after eight weeks of stress exposure (Huang et al, 2017). Interestingly, Simas et al reported a decreased food intake in mice exposed to CUMS compared to non-stressed mice when only a high-fat diet (HFD) was provided, but not when fed a standard diet (Simas et al, 2018). This suggests that the rewarding properties of calorically dense food are abolished during CUMS.…”