Abstract
Long-term hypercaloric diets adversely impact ovarian follicular development and fecundity. We investigated the effects of high sugar (HS), high fat low sugar (HFLS), and high fat normal sugar (HFNS) diets on ovarian follicular development by feeding mice for up to 180 days. Body weight, gonadal fat, glucose, lipid, insulin, estrous cycle, sex hormones, ovarian tissues, and follicle ultrastructure were examined, and the expression of metabolism-related proteins was evaluated immunoblotting in ovarians. The mice on hypercaloric diets showed hyperinsulinemia and hyperlipidemia and exhibited heavier body and gonadal fat weights, longer estrous cycles, and fewer numbers of preantral and antral follicles; and the follicles that did form had impaired organelle morphology. The sex hormone levels in blood were similar to controls, excepting significantly elevated estradiol levels for the HS diet. In ovarian tissues, AMPKα phosphorylation was reduced while AKT phosphorylation and caspase-3 were increased in ovarian tissues in mice on all three hypercaloric diets. The data from our study collectively indicates possible mechanisms through which long-term exposure to unhealthy hypercaloric diets may impair ovarian follicular development: hyperinsulinemia and hyperlipidemia.
Hypercaloric diets impair ovarian follicular development by inducing hyperinsulinemia and hyperlipidemia in female mice
