articles Pediatric Obesity prospective long-term follow-up (although these are notoriously difficult to undertake), or in animal species where close homology exists with humans. Pigs represent a useful species for the investigation of nutritional effects on later obesity and IS (14), with porcine models of obesity more closely reflecting the metabolic changes seen in human obesity than rodent models (15,16).The primary aim of this study was to investigate the impact of early dietary fat or sugar supplementation on later body composition (BC) and IS in maturing pigs.
Methods and ProceduresPorcine study experimental design Ethical approval was granted by the Animal Ethics Committee of the Department of Primary Industries, (Werribee, Australia). Fifty newborn pigs were randomized to receive either a control diet or one supplemented with 18% palm oil (saturated fat (SF)), 18% olive oil (monounsaturated fat: MUF), 9% palm/9% olive oil (mixed fat: MF), or 50% sucrose (SUC) from the time of weaning (day 7). Dietary composition for each of the five diets is shown in Table 1. Within each group, half of the animals were allowed unlimited quantities of food, while the other half were restricted to balance calorie consumption across the diets (~80% of ad libitum intake), in order to ensure that the effect of each diet on IS could be assessed across a broad range of weight gain. Food consumption (g) was measured daily and weight gain (kg) was recorded weekly over a period of 16 weeks (equating to the period of human prepubertal growth).Porcine study end points Body composition. Body composition (BC) was assessed, using whole body dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA; Hologic QDR4500), at baseline, midstudy and at 16 weeks. Methodology for porcine DXA assessment has been previously described, and appropriate mathematical adjustments were made to determine accurate percentages of lean muscle mass (LMM), fat mass (FM), and bone mass (BM) (17).