Comparative study of dietary fat: lard and sugar as a better obesity and metabolic syndrome mice model

Diet macronutrient heterogeneity hinders animal studies’ data extrapolation from metabolic disorders to human diseases. The present study aimed to evaluate different fat-diet compositions’ effect on inducing lipid/glucose metabolism alterations in mice. Swiss male mice were fed for 12 weeks with five different diets: Standard Diet (ST), American Institute of Nutrition 93 for growth (AIN93G) high-butter/high-sugar (HBHS), high-lard/high-sugar (HLHS), and high-oil/high-sugar diet (soybean oil) (HOHS). Several parameters, such as serum biochemistry, histology, and liver mRNA expression, were accessed. The main findings revealed that the HLHS diet dramatically altered liver metabolism inducing hepatic steatosis and increased total cholesterol, triglycerides, VLDL, increasing liver CCAAT/enhancer binding protein (CEBP-α), Acetyl-CoA carboxylase (ACC) and Catalase (CAT) mRNA expression. Moreover, the HLHS diet increased glucose intolerance and reduced insulin sensitivity. High-fat/high-sugar diets are efficient to induce obesity and metabolic syndrome-associated alterations, and diets enriched with lard and sugar showed more effective results.