Propensity and resistance to obesity in animals submitted to intrauterine nutritional restriction: correlation with the activity of digestive enzymes

• Grant number: 11/22195-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: March 01, 2012
• End date: August 31, 2012
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Medicine - Medical Clinics
• Principal Investigator: Daniela Felipe Pinheiro
• Grantee: Peterson Dante Gavasso Pacheco
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biociências (IBB). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Botucatu. Botucatu , SP, Brazil

Abstract

It has been observed in humans and experimental animals that inadequate nutrition during pregnancy can lead to the occurrence of "fetal programming" of disease, however, emerge in adulthood. It is believed that the individual generated environment develop with food restriction in the intra-uterine period, an "economic profile" that prepares you to face an environment with nutritional deficiency. When, after birth, the availability of nutrients is proportionately larger than in the previous period, this individual may submit increased risk of outbreaks of different diseases, including metabolic diseases and obesity. Many of the latter effect has been attributed to changes in hormonal control of metabolism, especially in glucose metabolism, and changes in food intake. The supply of glucose to the body is dependent on the processing of carbohydrates from the gastrointestinal tract, specifically the activity of intestinal enzymes. It is known that this activity can be modulated by a number of factors, including fetal programming. However, they lack information to associate the effects fetal programming, obesity and intestinal enzyme activity. The diet-induced obesity (DIO = diet-induced obesity) affects unevenly the population, indicating the occurrence of resistant and other individuals likely to develop obesity. Our hypothesis is that the programming can also affect the population so heterogeneous and resistant animals prone to obesity and show different levels of change in intestinal enzyme activity. Therefore, the objective of this research is to evaluate the effect of fetal programming on the activity of intestinal disaccharidases, correlating the results with the propensity to develop resistance and obesity. Will be used male rats at 16 weeks of age, divided into two experimental groups (HP, HR) that will differ in terms of resistance or propensity for developing obesity. The identification of groups, the first letter indicates the mother's diet during rat pregnancy (H = low protein) and the second resistance (R) or prone (P) rats develop obesity. The data will be analyzed using t test, the level of 5% significance level.