Functional Food Intervention Attenuates Obesity‐Induced Metabolic and Intestinal Microbiota Changes in Rats

Obesity is a multifactorial disease that functional foods may counteract. These foods can be a promising dietary strategy to reduce metabolic changes. Our study evaluated the effects of a bioactive food compound (BFC) against a high‐fat diet (HFD). BFC contains oat bran, flaxseed, and textured soy protein in a 2:1:1 ratio. Thirty‐four male rats were divided into three groups. One group consumed a balanced diet (control) from the beginning to the end of the experiment (T0, T1, T2). Two groups were induced to obesity with an HFD for 4 months (T1). One group maintained HFD consumption, while another consumed HFD with BFC (HFD/BFC) for 30 days (T2). BFC significantly reduced abdominal circumference in the HFD/BFC group (18.16 ± 1.09 cm) compared to the HFD group (23.89 ± 1.96 cm) and BD group (21.62 ± 1.69 cm) ( p ≤ 0.001), hepatic steatosis ( p ≤ 0.001), and fecal pH (7.83 ± 0.01). BFC increased HDL‐C significantly in the HFD/BFC group (34.5 mg·dL −1 ) when compared to HFD (30 mg·dL −1 ) and butyric acid (1.43 ± 0.03%). Without statistical significance, it attenuated body weight, blood glucose, LDL‐C, triglycerides, VLDL‐C, and intestinal damage. In microbiota analyses, the Firmicutes phylum was found to be the predominant one. Lactobacillus and Prevotella genera increased in the HFD/BFC group. We concluded that the BFC positively affected changes resulting from obesity, offering hope in the fight against this disease.