High‐fat diet protects BB/OK rats from developing type 1 diabetes

Background It is well known that lipid metabolism plays an important role in the early stages of type 1 diabetes (T1D). For that reason, we examined factors that influence lipid metabolism of BioBreeding/Ottawa Kalsburg (BB/OK) rats that spontaneously develop an insulin‐dependent T1D. Methods BB/OK female rats were fed a high‐fat diet during pregnancy (Ssniff R–Z + 10% tallow) and their progeny were also given this diet up to an age of 30 weeks ( n = 55) or 4 weeks ( n = 14) to study gene expression of Pparg, Fasn, Lep, Adipoq, Repin1, Rarres 2, and Glut4 in adipose tissue. Forty‐two BB/OK rats fed the normal diet (Ssniff R–Z) during pregnancy and the observation period served as controls. Results The high‐fat diet significantly decreased diabetes frequency in BB/OK rats when compared with control rats (71 versus 95%, p = 0.002). Although this difference was also reflected in the male rats (68 versus 100%, p = 0.003), no significant variation was observed in female rats (73 versus 90%, p = 0.23). The high‐fat diet resulted in significantly reduced mRNA expression of examined genes in subcutaneous adipose tissue, but not in visceral adipose tissue, except for Fasn and Repin1 expression. Conclusions A high‐fat diet seems to protect BB/OK rats from T1D in a sex‐specific manner. The data suggest that a high‐fat diet might influence fat accumulation and/or fat metabolism and prevent T1D development in male rats, which is supported by changes in adipose tissue gene expression. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.