Abstract
This study was designed to assess the effect of honey supplementation and sugar-based hypercaloric regimen on weight gain and blood pressure (BP) in Wistar rats. Animals were fed for 8 weeks with standard diet (S-free) or a hypercaloric diet (standard chow and 30% sugar in drinking water), (SF), or standard chow supplemented with fat and honey and 10% sugar in drinking water (HF). Overall weight gain and body fat levels were significantly higher in SF and HF than in S-free. Fat cells were significantly larger in SF compared with HF. Compared with SF and S-free, HF had higher glucose, but triglycerides, and LDLc levels were not different. BP was significantly higher in SF but not in HF compared to S-free. These observations indicate that honey may afford a protection against increase in BP and in fat cell size resulting from a hypercaloric diet.
Keywords: Carbohydrate, Honey, Hypertension, Obesity, Rats, Fat cell size, weight gain, blood pressure, SF, HF, overweight, glucose, sucrose, fructose, metabolic syndrome, adipose tissue, dyslipidemia, cytokine, Diet, LDLc, enzymatic colorimetric kit, Histology, Tuckey test, Body Weight, adipocyte size, Plasma Glucose, Triglycerides, hypercaloric diet, metabolism, hypertrophy, hyperplasia
22