Efeitos da suplementação de óleo de linhaça sobre o comportamento alimentar e suas consequências sobre a regulação hormonal e o metabolismo de ratos saudáveis

Abstract

The intake of palatable and caloric foods has increased in world and its intake is even higher in adolescents and young people. Therefore, strategies for prevention or treatment of obesogenic behavior and its consequences on the nutritional status, biochemical and hormonal profile become necessary. Thus, in the present study we evaluated the effect of flaxseed oil on the eating behavior and its consequeces on mechanisms involving food intake and hormonal regulation in healthy rats. Male and female Wistar rats, 25 days-old, were distributed between two groups: 1) Soybean oil (SO) or 2) Flaxseed oil (FO), received the respective oil daily by gavage for six weeks. In PN65 the rats were submitted to a feeding preference test, in which they had to choose between three diets: standard chow (SC), high-sugar diet (HSD) or high-fat diet (HFD). All animals showed a higher preference for HFD. However, the females FO consumed lower HFD (30min and 12h) and higher SC. In addition, females FO has a reduction in total food intake at the end of the test. In the nucleus accumbens (NAc), females FO presented lower content of dopamine transporter (DAT) and higher content of dopamine receptor 1 (D1R) in NAc and higher content of pJAK2 and pSTAT3 in the ARC compared to female SO. The male FO had lower content of dopa decarboxylase (DDc) in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and higher content of dopamine receptor 2 (D2R) in NAc. The male FO group rats showed lower body weight gain, total and visceral fat associated with a smaller adipocyte size, higher serum insulin and serum testosterone. Besides flaxseed oil supplementation caused a decrease of liver triglycerides in the both sexes, but only in the female, it was observed a hypotriglyceridemia and higher serum 17β-estradiol. The supplementation with flaxseed oil may have a potential effect on the choice of healthy foods during the adolescence of women, as well as being an important bioactive compound to be used in the control of body mass and body fat mass, as well as in the prevention of dyslipidemia and hepatic steatosis even in healthy subjets.