Oral Presentation ANZOS-ASLM-ICCR 2019

Dietary glucose potentiates adiposity to a greater extent than sucrose, fructose or isomaltulose in mice (#28)

Grace J Campbell 1 , Sophie Lucic Fisher 1 , Jane Darmawan 1 , Kim S Bell-Anderson 1
  1. Charles Perkins Centre, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW

The main environmental risk factor for obesity is poor diet. The industrialisation of food processing has increased availability of highly-refined, high glycemic index, ultra-processed foods. Up to 85% of dietary carbohydrate is absorbed as glucose as compared to fructose, and energy intake from glucose has increased over the same time period as obesity. However, fructose receives a much higher level of scrutiny in relation to health outcomes.  We fed female C57Bl6 mice, and their offspring, one of four high-sugar diets differing in saccharide composition (glucose, fructose, sucrose or isomaltulose; 64% carbohydrate as energy) or standard chow. Body composition was determined by EchoMRI.  Dams fed high-glucose had greater fat mass, in grams and as percentage of body weight compared to chow and high-isomaltulose fed dams (glucose 3.0±0.3g vs chow 2.0±0.1g; isomaltulose 2.0±0.2g, p<0.05 for both).  During pregnancy, high-glucose dams were significantly fatter than all other high-sugar and chow-fed dams (glucose 7.6±0.9g vs chow 3.7±0.2g (p<0.001); vs isomaltulose 4.3±0.4g (p<0.005); vs sucrose 5.1±0.5g (p<0.05); vs fructose 4.9±0.5g (p<0.05)).  In pups fed the same diets as their mothers, the effects of diet on adiposity were sexually dimorphic. By 12 weeks of age, high-sugar diet fed female pups were all significantly fatter than chow-fed offspring (chow 2.2±0.2g vs glucose 3.0±0.2g (p<0.01); vs isomaltulose 2.9±0.2g (p<0.01); vs sucrose 3.0±0.2g (p<0.01); vs fructose 2.8±0.2g (p<0.05)). In male offspring, high-glucose fed pups were significantly fatter than chow and high-isomaltulose fed pups (glucose 3.9±0.5g vs chow 2.2±0.5g (p<0.05); vs isomaltulose 2.3±0.4g (p<0.05)). Dietary carbohydrate in the form of glucose, rather than sucrose or fructose, facilitates greater adiposity in female mice and their male offspring compared with chow and isomaltulose fed mice.  Increasing obesity rates may be related to the increased availability of glucose in processed foods, but refined sugar diets of any kind may program female offspring adiposity.