title: Long-term exposure to high fat diet is bad for your brain: exacerbation of focal ischemic brain injury.
abstract: A diet consisting of high levels of saturated fat has been linked to a dramatic rise in obesity, type II diabetes, and metabolic syndrome. The effect of these co-morbidities on stroke outcome has not been examined in detail in human or animal studies. In this study we hypothesized that maintaining animals on a high fat, "Western diet" (WD), for an extended period would have a detrimental effect on ischemic outcome. Forty-eight male Sprague-Dawley rats were exposed to 1 month of either WD or control diets initiated at 6 weeks of age (Experiment 1) or 3 months of either WD or control diets initiated at 4 weeks of age (Experiment 2) prior to endothelin-1-induced ischemia. Following ischemia, animals were assessed in the staircase reaching and beam-traversing tests at 2 and 4 weeks post-ischemia and infarct volumes were calculated at 4 weeks post-ischemia. Analysis revealed no difference between animals exposed to either WD or control diets for 1 month in behavioral or histological assessments. In contrast, 3 months of WD diet exposure significantly increased functional impairments in both the staircase and beam-traversing tests as well as increasing the volume of infarction, primarily in the cortex. The results of this study demonstrate that long-term exposure to WD diets are detrimental to ischemic outcome. Consequently, it is important to incorporate disease co-morbidities and/or risk factors in pre-clinical evaluation of neuroprotective or restorative interventions if therapies are to be translated into the clinic.
authors: Division of BioMedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, NL, Canada.
authors: K D
authors: KD
authors: Langdon
authors: J
authors: J
authors: Clarke
authors: D
authors: D
authors: Corbett
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D020520:Brain Infarction / Q000209:etiology / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology; D004041:Dietary Fats / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000633:toxicity*; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D005526:Food, Formulated / Q000633:toxicity*; D020925:Hypoxia-Ischemia, Brain / Q000209:etiology* / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology; D008297:Male; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D012307:Risk Factors; D013995:Time
chemical_list: D004041:Dietary Fats