Iliyan V. Dimitrov‡, Vassil I. Kamenov‡, Nikolay P. Boyadjiev‡, Katerina N. Georgieva‡, Anelia V. Bivolarska‡, Milena N. Draganova-Filipova‡, Penka A. Angelova-Hristova‡, Slavi Delchev‡, Elena Daskalova‡, Fanka Gerginska‡, Teodora R. Stankova‡, Vilian Gramatikov‡Corresponding author: Iliyan V. Dimitrov ( idimitrov@meduniversity-plovdiv.bg ) © Iliyan V. Dimitrov, Vassil I. Kamenov, Nikolay P. Boyadjiev, Katerina N. Georgieva, Anelia V. Bivolarska, Milena N. Draganova-Filipova, Penka A. Angelova-Hristova, Slavi Delchev, Elena Daskalova, Fanka Gerginska, Teodora R. Stankova, Vilian Gramatikov. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Dimitrov IV, Kamenov VI, Boyadjiev NP, Georgieva KN, Bivolarska AV, Draganova-Filipova MN, Angelova-Hristova PA, Delchev S, Daskalova E, Gerginska F, Stankova TR, Gramatikov V (2019) Impact of a High-fat Diet on the Development of Chronic Inflammation in Heart of Wistar rats. Folia Medica 61(3): 404-410. https://doi.org/10.3897/folmed.61.e39348 |  |
Introduction: Obesity is linked to the development of low-grade, chronic inflammation. Obesity-related inflammation appears to be a different type of inflammation, mainly due to excessive food intake and unusual homeostasis. It can be evaluated by measuring the concentration of pro- and anti-inflammatory marker molecules – C-reactive protein (CRP), serum amyloid-A (SAA) and interleukin-4.
Aim: The aim of the present study is to evaluate the rate of the inflammatory process in heart, provoked by the consumption of a high-fat diet.
Materials and methods: Sixty 8-week-old male Wistar rats were used in this experiment. The laboratory animals were fed orally with two different types of rodent food for 14 or 18 weeks – a high-fat diet (experimental groups) and standard rodent food (control groups). They all were kept under standard housing conditions. The levels of the pro- and anti-inflammatory markers in tissue homogenates from heart were analyzed using ELISA. Their expression in tissue samples was detected immunohistochemically by the biotin-streptavidin-peroxidase method. The total protein concentration was determined by the Lawry method.
Results: CRP levels showed no significant differences when the control group was compared with the groups fed with a high-fat diet (p>0.05). The SAA levels detected were also insignificantly changed. Only the IL-4 tissue levels showed tendency to increase (p<0.05) in the high-fat diet group.
Conclusions: Our experiment indicates that there is a specific reaction of the heart to a high-fat diet. It also refers to the existence of adaptive mechanisms allowing the heart to counteract the development of dietary induced inflammation.