Journal of Applied Physiology, Vol 80, Issue 4 1173-1179, Copyright © 1996 by American Physiological Society

ARTICLES

Body fat and exercise endurance in trained rats adapted to a high-fat and/or high-carbohydrate diet

R. A. Lapachet, W. C. Miller and D. A. Arnall
Department of Kinesiology, Indiana University, Bloomington 47405, USA.

To study how diet composition affects exercise endurance and body composition, 48 male Sprague-Dawley rats were treadmill trained for 8 wk while consuming either a high-fat (F) diet or high-carbohydrate (C) diet. The diets were switched for one-half the number of rats in each group 3 days before the animals were killed, during which feeding time the rats did not exercise. One-half of rats receiving each of the four diet combinations were taken at rest (R) or exhaustion (E), resulting in eight groups: CCR, CFR, FFR, FCR, CCE CFE, FFE, and FCE. An analysis of variance revealed that resting glycogen in the FCR group was enhanced in muscle (19-33%) and liver (23%) compared with controls. Each F group's exercise time to exhaustion [CFE, 322.9 +/- 25.0; FFE, 356.8 +/- 37.8; FCE, 467.0 +/- 32.6 (SE) min] was different (P < 0.05) from control (CCE, 257.5 +/- 29.2 min). Postexercise glycogen was equivalent among all dietary groups, were muscle triglycerides. The FF and FC groups had higher 3-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydrogenase activity in soleus muscle than either CC or CF animals. After training, body weights were similar between the two dietary groups; however, percent body fat was 17% greater after the F diet, even though F diet animals voluntarily consumed 12% less energy than did C diet animals. These data suggest that exercise endurance time is optimized in trained rats that receive a carbohydrate load after adaptation to a F diet. However, despite intense exercise training, the F diet promotes body fat deposition, and the health consequences of following such a regimen are still unknown.

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