Evaluation of the effectiveness of a hyperlipidic-hyperglycemic diet in inducing weight gain and dyslipidemia in wistar rats

Hyperlipidic and hyperglycemic diets, called cafeteria diets, are important factors that favor the development of pathologies and comorbidities such as obesity, type 2 diabetes mellitus, neoplasms, and cardiovascular diseases. Thus, their use in experimental studies that aim to understand the factors that encompass the pathophysiology and treatment of obesity and the comorbidities involved has increased in recent years. Taking that into consideration, the aim of this study was to analyze the effectiveness of a high-fat-hyperglycemic (HHD) diet in inducing weight gain and dyslipidemia in Wistar rats. In this study, 22 rats were divided into 2 groups, and exposed to standard and high-fat-hyperglycemic diets for 11 weeks. After that, euthanasia was carried out along with collection of blood samples for analysis of the following parameters of the lipid profile: triglycerides (TG), total cholesterol (TC), low-density lipoprotein (LDL-c), high-density lipoprotein (HDL-c), and TG/HDL-c ratio. A more expressive weight gain was found in the rats that received HHD (p=0.006) in relation to the group maintained on the standard diet. Furthermore, no statistically detected alterations were found in the levels of TG, TC, LDL-c, HDL-c, and TG-HDL-c ratio. Analysis of the results indicated that HHD was effective in inducing weight gain in rats. However, there was no significant influence on the lipid profile.