Author: Herr Dr. Amoneit
Last saved by: Saritas, Sevim
Company: Microsoft

Body Mass Regulation by Dietary Lipids Through Modulation of Oxytocin Expression and Oleylethanolamide Levels in Rat Plasma
I. Sospedra, R. Moral, R. Escrich, M. Solanas, E. Vela and E. Escrich 
Department of Cell Biology, Physiology and Immunology, Physiology Unit, Medicine School, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

The increasing obesity prevalence in developed countries has promoted the need to identify the mechanisms involved in control of feeding and energy balance. In this study we have tested the hypothesis that different sort of fats present in diet composition may affect body weight gain and final body indexes by regulation of oxytocin gene (oxt) expression in hypothalamus and Oleylethanolamide (OEA) levels in plasma. Sprague-Dawley rats were fed two high fat diets, based on corn (HCO) and extra virgin olive oil (HOO) and results were compared to a low fat diet (LF).  
Results after HPLC-MS/MS analysis showed that, although an increasing trend in HOO group is observed, no significant differences in OEA plasma levels of the three studied groups were found. However, body weight gain of LF and HOO were similar and significantly lower than that of HCO group. Also HCO rats had a higher specific body mass index than HOO rats. These results evidence that after consumption of high fat diets weight gain can be influenced and thereby controlled by the kind of lipids consumed. Rats fed HOO diet had higher levels of hypothalamic oxt mRNA expression, which could indicate that oxytocin may have an important role in this process and its levels could also be modulated by dietary lipids.