Laboratory for Experimental Surgery and Surgical Research 'N. S. Christeas', Medical School, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece.
Lab Anim. 2013 Oct;47(4):241-4. doi: 10.1177/0023677213480768. Epub 2013 May 17.
Mice are widely used in studies investigating the effect of diet on metabolic risk factors, such as lipid profiles and plasma glucose levels. An important factor that is usually not taken into account is the biological age of the experimental models. The up-to-date identified experimental confounders do not cover all the parameters that may affect the results of animal studies. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of a high-fat diet on the metabolic profile, hepatic and renal function in mice of differing ages. For this purpose two groups of male C57BL/6J mice were used, consisting of 10-week-old mice and 54-week-old mice in each group. Both groups followed identical high-fat diets for 12 weeks. The younger mice showed smaller increases in body weight, serum total cholesterol, glucose and urea levels while they had higher increases in high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels than the older mice. Our results indicate the necessity to consider an experimental animal's age as a confounding factor when researching or interpreting metabolic studies. Age adjustment is warranted in all animal research while a uniform approach regarding the age of the animal models should be applied in experimental studies.
小鼠广泛用于研究饮食对代谢风险因素的影响，如血脂谱和血浆葡萄糖水平。通常未被考虑的一个重要因素是实验模型的生物年龄。最新确定的实验混杂因素并不能涵盖所有可能影响动物研究结果的参数。本研究旨在调查高脂肪饮食对不同年龄小鼠代谢特征、肝肾功能的影响。为此，使用了两组雄性 C57BL/6J 小鼠，每组包含 10 周龄和 54 周龄的小鼠。两组均遵循相同的高脂肪饮食 12 周。年轻小鼠的体重、血清总胆固醇、葡萄糖和尿素水平增加幅度较小，而高密度脂蛋白胆固醇水平增加幅度较大。我们的研究结果表明，在研究或解释代谢研究时，有必要将实验动物的年龄视为混杂因素。在所有动物研究中都需要进行年龄调整，而在实验研究中应采用统一的动物模型年龄方法。
