Effect of high saturated‐fat diets on bone mass and endochondral ossification in healthy growing rats

High‐fat diets can produce deleterious effects on bone metabolism in growing animals. Objective: To investigate in healthy growing rats the effect of high saturated‐fat diets on bone mass and endochondral ossification. Weaning male Wistar rats (n=20) were fed ad libitum one of the 2 diets, for 4 wks: control (C; fat=7% w/w) (AIN‐93G) or a high‐fat diet containing 20% w/w of beef‐tallow (BT). Then rats were sacrificed. Total skeleton bone mineral density (BMD) and bone mineral content (BMC) were evaluated by DXA (Lunar DPX‐L).The following histomorphometric parameters were evaluated: Bone volume (BV/TV)(%) and cartilage growth plate thickness (CGP.Th).Statistics: Student's t test & Pearson's correlations coefficients were calculated. Results (as mean±SD): BMD(mg/cm 2 ), C=245±13 vs BT=244±13 (p>0.05); BMC(mg), C=1085±319 vs BT=689± 224; (BV/TV)(%), C=45±5 vs BT=38±3 (p<0.03); total GPC.Th(mm), C=0.44±0.04 vs BT=0.43±0.03 (p>0.05); proliferative zone GPC.Th(mm), C=0.21±0.01 vs BT=0.18± 0.01 (p>0.001).The correlation between BMC vs proliferative zone CGP.Th was ‐0.881 (p<0.05). Conclusion High saturated‐fat diets lead to a decreased in BMC associated with a significant increased in CGP.Th as well as a reduction in BV/TV. Based on these findings, we suggest that high saturated‐fat diets acts as a dependent risk factor for bone modeling interfering the acquired of bone mass. Awarded by UBACyT O 008 ‐ O015.