THE EFFECT OF ENVIRONMENTAL ENRICHMENT AND WESTERN DIET ON THE TRACE ELEMENT STATUS AND OXIDATIVE STRESS IN RATS

Objective:The Western diet (WD), which is rich in highfat diet (HFD) and high-sucrose diet (HSD), is related to oxidative stress. Enriched environment (EE) with social interaction, physical exercise and continuous learning tasks has been shown to reduce oxidative stress, the inflammatory response, and increase the anti-oxidative defense. Therefore, the present study has aimed to clarify the effects of the EE and WD-fed rats on marker malondialdehyde (MDA) and trace element (TE) levels (iron [Fe], copper [Cu], zinc [Zn], chromium [Cr], selenium [Se], magnesium [Mg] and molybdenum [Mo]). Material and Method: Male Wistar albino rats were housed in either an enrichment (n=24) or standard environment (n=24) and fed with HFD (35% of energy as fat) (n=8), HSD (100% of carbohydrate as sucrose) (n=8), or standard rat chow(n=8), for 4 weeks. Inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometry was used for determination of the serum TE levels. Results: The serum levels of MDA (p<0.05), Fe, Cu, Mo and Mg increased, while the serum levels of Cr and Se decreased, and additionally, the serum levels of Zn did not changed in the HFD and HSD groups. EE decreased partially the serum levels of MDA, Fe, Mo, and did not affect the serum levels of Cu, while it increased the serum levels of Mg, Cr, Se and Zn; however, there was no significant difference between all of the experimental groups (all; p>0.05). Conclusions: Our study demonstrated that HFD and HSD led to oxidative stress and adversely affected the serum level of TE in rats, and that the EE reversed partially this status.