Effect and mechanism of high‐fat diet on the preference for sweeteners on mice

BACKGROUND: Male Kunming mice were divided into the normal diet group (control group) and the high-fat diet group (HF group, 185 g·kg-1 protein, 600 g·kg-1 fat and 205 g·kg-1 carbohydrate). After eight weeks' feeding, the behavioral and biochemical indicators in serum were determined. The double bottle preference experiment was used to study the preference of mice for five sweeteners. The contents of monoamine neurotransmitters and genes expression related to dopamine (DA) and opioid receptor were also determined. RESULTS: The body weight of the mice in HF group increased significantly (p < 0.05) after 36 days compared with the control group. While the feed intake of HF group increased sharply in the first 12 days, and then it became basically unchanged. The preference of the HF group for all the five sweeteners was very significantly lower (p < 0.01) than that of the control group. The depression-related behavior was observed in the HF group mice. The contents of TG, TC and LDLC in the HF group were extremely higher (p < 0.01) than that of the control group. The genes expression related to DA and opioid receptor in the HF group was significantly lower than that of the control group, except for the preproenkephalin (PENK). CONCLUSIONS: In summary, this study suggested that a long-term high-fat diet could result in the decrease of the preference for sweeteners on mice due to the long-term consumption of high-fat diet could result in a state of reward hypofunction on mice. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.