Does a high-fat diet-induced obesity model brown adipose tissue thermogenesis? A systematic review

Introduction: In this systematic review, we analysed studies that assessed the brown adipose tissue (BAT) activity in the high-fat/cafeteria diet model of obesity in rats. Material and methods: Scopus, PubMed, Embase, and ScienceDirect data-bases were searched from January 2017 to November 2017. Using specific combinations of medical subject heading (MeSH) descriptors, seven papers remained after the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Results: Most papers showed an increase in BAT thermogenesis in rodents fed high-fat/cafeteria diet. Some studies did not mention the diet composition or housing temperature, and the most of them investigated the thermo-genesis superficially, being limited to the analysis of the UCP 1 expression. Conclusions: Despite the consolidated use of high-fat/cafeteria diets as a model to induce obesity, the identification of the energy expenditure arm has been slow, especially the direct quantitative assessment of the contribution of BAT to the increase in metabolic rate in rats fed a cafeteria/high-fat diet.

Automated summary

Studies on rats fed high-fat/cafeteria diets show an increase in brown adipose tissue thermogenesis, though some studies lack details on diet composition and housing temperature. Most studies superficially investigate thermogenesis, focusing mainly on UCP1 expression.