Regular endurance exercise improves the diminished hepatic carnitine status in mice fed a high-fat diet

✍ Scribed by Robert Ringseis; Frank-Christoph Mooren; Janine Keller; Aline Couturier; Gaiping Wen; Frank Hirche; Gabriele I. Stangl; Klaus Eder; Karsten Krüger

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2011
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 206 KB
• Volume: 55
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1613-4125
• DOI: 10.1002/mnfr.201100040

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Scope: Metabolic stress induced by chronic high‐fat (HF) diet feeding or genetically induced diabetes impairs carnitine status. Herein, we tested the hypothesis that regular endurance exercise (EE) improves the HF diet‐induced impairment of carnitine status through stimulating the expression of hepatic genes involved in carnitine synthesis and uptake.

Methods and results: Eighteen male C57BL/6 mice were assigned to three groups: group S received a standard diet, group HF received a HF diet, and group HF+EE received an HF diet and was regularly exercised on a treadmill. After 10 wk, mice of the HF and the HF+EE groups were highly obese and insulin resistant compared with mice of the S group (p<0.05), but mice of the HF+EE group were less insulin resistant than those of the HF group (p<0.05). The HF group had lower carnitine concentrations and mRNA and protein levels of genes involved in carnitine synthesis and uptake in the liver than the S group (p<0.05), whereas these parameters did not differ between the S group and the HF+EE group.

Conclusion: These findings indicate that regular EE reverses an HF diet‐induced impairment of hepatic carnitine content by stimulating hepatic carnitine synthesis and uptake.