Leigh Sarah-Jane, Kendig Michael D, Morris Margaret J
Department of Pharmacology, School of Medical Sciences, UNSW Sydney.
Department of Pharmacology, School of Medical Sciences, UNSW Sydney;
J Vis Exp. 2019 Nov 1(153). doi: 10.3791/60262.
Obesity is rapidly increasing in incidence in developed and developing countries and is known to induce or exacerbate many diseases. The health burden of obesity and its comorbid conditions highlight the need for better understanding of its pathogenesis, yet ethical constraints limit studies in humans. To this end externally valid models of obesity in laboratory animals are essential for the understanding of being overweight and obesity. While many species have been used to model the range of changes that accompany obesity in humans, rodents are most commonly used. Our laboratory has developed a western-style cafeteria diet that consistently leads to considerable weight gain and markers of metabolic disease in rodents. The diet exposes rodents to a variety of highly palatable foods to induce hyperphagia, modeling the modern western food environment. This diet rapidly induces weight gain and body fat accumulation in rats allowing for the study of effects of overeating and obesity. While the cafeteria diet may not provide the same control over macronutrient and micronutrient profile as purified high-fat or high-fat, high-sugar diets, the cafeteria diet typically induces a more severe metabolic phenotype than that observed with purified diets and is more in line with metabolic disturbances observed in the overweight and obese human population.
肥胖在发达国家和发展中国家的发病率正在迅速上升，并且已知会诱发或加剧许多疾病。肥胖及其合并症的健康负担凸显了更好地了解其发病机制的必要性，然而伦理限制阻碍了对人类的研究。为此，实验室动物中肥胖的外部有效模型对于理解超重和肥胖至关重要。虽然许多物种已被用于模拟人类肥胖所伴随的一系列变化，但啮齿动物是最常用的。我们实验室开发了一种西式自助饮食，这种饮食会持续导致啮齿动物体重显著增加和出现代谢疾病标志物。这种饮食使啮齿动物接触各种美味食物以诱导过度进食，模拟现代西方食物环境。这种饮食能迅速使大鼠体重增加和体脂堆积，从而可以研究暴饮暴食和肥胖的影响。虽然自助饮食可能无法像纯化的高脂肪或高脂肪、高糖饮食那样对宏量营养素和微量营养素成分进行相同程度的控制，但自助饮食通常会诱发比纯化饮食更严重的代谢表型，并且更符合超重和肥胖人群中观察到的代谢紊乱情况。
