Endocrine Abstracts

Obesity leads to low-grade inflammation, and high-fat diet is one of the major causes. On the other hand, menopause can aggravate it by promoting food intake alterations, and metabolic and endocrine adaptations. Thus, we used ovariectomized rats fed with high-fat diet to evaluate changes on the tissue inflammatory state. Forty days-old female Wistar rats were fed with: a hyperlipidic diet enriched with lard – H-group; or chow diet – C-group; for 30 days. After this period, the H and C were divided in four groups: sham-operated (SH and SC), ovariectomized (OVXH and OVXC). The respective diets were maintained, and 30 days after the surgery, the animals were euthanatized. Serum, mesenteric adipose tissue, gastrocnemius muscle and liver were collected. Tissues IL10, TNFα and IL6 level, body weight gain, serum lipid profile, leptin and insulin were determined. MANOVA was used for statistical analysis, with Scheffé’s post-hoc test and P<0.05. All parameters analysed were similar between SC and OVXC groups. The OVXH had higher mesenteric adipose tissue weight than SH (F=4.9 (3.27); P<0.05). The high-fat diet caused a decrease in IL10, IL6 and TNFα in mesenteric adipose tissue from SH and OVXH rats compared to control diet. The association between hyperlipidic diet and ovariectomy promoted an increase in total body weight gain (F=8.5 (3.27); P<0.05) and serum leptin (F=8.3 (3.27); P<0.05) level in relation to others groups. These results demonstrate that 30 days of ovariectomy did not affect the analysed parameters. However, hyperlipidic diet associated to ovariectomy increases body weight gain and leptinemia. These results suggest that short period without oestrogen was not able to promote proinflammatory state in the assessed tissues, also that the hyperlipidic diet could potentiate the effects of ovariectomy on obesity development with hyperleptinemia.