Dietary supplementation with fish oil reverses high fat diet-induced enhanced sensitivity to the behavioral effects of quinpirole

Abstract

Consuming a high fat diet can lead to many negative health consequences, such as obesity, insulin resistance, and enhanced sensitivity to drugs acting on dopamine systems. It has recently been demonstrated that dietary supplementation with fish oil, which is rich in omega-3 fatty acids, can prevent this high fat diet-induced enhanced sensitivity to dopaminergic drugs from developing. However, it is not known if fish oil supplementation can reverse this effect once it has already developed. In order to test the hypothesis that dietary supplementation with fish oil will reverse high fat diet-induced enhanced sensitivity to quinpirole, a dopamine D₂/D₃ receptor agonist, male Sprague-Dawley rats were fed either standard chow (17% kcal from fat), high fat chow (60% kcal from fat), standard chow or high fat chow supplemented with 20% (w/w) fish oil. Body weight, food consumption, and sensitivity to quinpirole-induced (0.0032-0.32 mg/kg) penile erections were examined throughout the course of the experiment. Eating high fat chow enhanced sensitivity of rats to quinpirole-induced penile erections (i.e., resulted in a leftward shift of the ascending limb of the dose-response curve). Dietary supplementation with fish oil successfully treated this effect, since dose-response curves were not different for rats eating standard chow and rats eating high fat chow with fish oil. These results suggest that in addition to preventing the negative health consequences of eating a high fat diet, fish oil can also reverse some of these consequences once they have developed.

Cafeteria diet decreases sucrose preference and increases the sensitivity of risperidone in the caloric intake of Wistar rats

“…Cafeteria or high-fat diets have also been shown to induce changes in sensitivity to various drugs (Robertson and Rasmussen, 2017;Hernandez-Casner et al, 2019;Ramos et al, 2019). These changes seem to be related to regulations on the expression of receptors and on the release of neurotransmitters (Robertson and Rasmussen, 2017;Kalmukova et al, 2018;Ramos et al, 2019).…”