Speaker
Description
Introduction
Malnutrition remains prevalent worldwide, and about 45% of all child deaths are linked to malnutrition. It is unclear whether survivors of childhood malnutrition suffer from long-term metabolic effects, especially when exposed later in life to an obesogenic diet. The lack of understanding around this dietary “double burden” warrants studies to understand the long-term consequences postnatal malnutrition. We hypothesized that an early-life nutritional insult of low protein consumption in mice would lead to long-term metabolic disturbances that would exacerbate the development of obesogenic diet-induced fatty liver disease and insulin resistance.
Methods
We investigated the effects of feeding a low protein diet (4% wt/wt) immediately after weaning for four weeks and subsequent feeding of a high carbohydrate high fat feeding for 16 weeks on metabolic function and development of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).
Results
Mice exposed to early-life protein restriction as a model for malnutrition demonstrated a transient glucose intolerance upon recovery by regular chow diet feeding. However, protein restriction after weaning in mice did not exacerbate obesogenic diet-induced insulin resistance. In additional NAFLD scores were similar in low protein diet fed animals compared to regular protein fed animals after high carbohydrate high fat feeding.
Conclusions
These data suggest that transient protein restriction in early-life does not exacerbate high carbohydrate high fat diet-induced NAFLD and insulin resistance in mice.
| Institution | Hospital for Sick Children |
|---|---|
| Country | Canada |
