PROTEIN-CALORIC RESTRICTION DURING LACTATION HAS A TRANSGENERATIONAL EFFECT IN GLUCOSE HOMEOSTASIS OF MALE RATS

Abstract

Experimental and epidemiological studies demonstrated an important association between
insults in sensitive stages of development and metabolic syndrome at adulthood.
Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) concept indicates that pregnancy and
lactation are windows to metabolic programming, once in these phases, occurs a peak of
neuronal development. There is a gap in the study of the transgenerational effect of insults
performed in programming windows, especially when it comes to malnutrition. Female
Wistar rats were submitted to a protein-caloric restriction during the first 14 days of lactation
(LP, low-protein group) or a normal-caloric diet through the lactation (NP, normal-protein
group). At 70 days old these females were mated with a control male rat. The offspring (F2
generation, NP and LP groups) were fed with normal-caloric diet and were euthanized at 21
days old to blood collection and biometric analysis. There were no differences between
groups in body weight at weaning. Also, retroperitoneal, periepididymal and mesenteric fat
pads were similar between NP and LP animals. We showed an 11% (P˂0.05) increase in
brown adipose tissue weight in LP group. Fasting glucose was increased by 99% (P˂0.05) in
LP groups, without alteration in fasting insulin levels. We conclude that protein-caloric
restriction during lactation has a transgenerational effect in male rats, altering the glucose
homeostasis.