Intestinal Morphometric Changes Induced by a Western-Style Diet in Wistar Rats and GSPE Counter-Regulatory Effect

Western-style diet is an obesogenic diet for rodents and humans due to its content of saturated fat and refined sugars, mainly sucrose and, in consequence, sucrose-derived fructose. This type of diets relates with intestinal disturbances when consumed regularly. The aim of this work was to analyse the adaptive morphologic and functional changes at intestinal level derived from the unhealthy components of a Cafeteria diet in rats. The effect of grape seed proanthocyanidin extract (GSPE) in the prevention of diet-induced intestinal dysfunction was also analysed. Rats were fed a 17-week cafeteria diet (CAF) without or with oral-GSPE supplementation, either intermittent GSPE administration (SIT-CAF); last 10-day GSPE supplementation at doses of 100 mg/kg and 500 mg/kg day (CORR-100) and (CORR-500) or pre-supplementation with 500 mg/kg GSPE (PRE-CAF). GSPE-CAF supplemented groups showed similar results to CAF diet group regarding morphology and inflammatory score in the duodenum. As an adaptive response to diet, CAF increased intestinal absorptive surface (1.24-fold) all along the intestinal tract and specifically in the small intestine, duodenum, due to increase villus height and a higher villus/crypt ratio, in addition to increase in Goblet cell percentage and inflammatory index. Animals fed GSPE at the current doses and times had higher villus heights and absorptive surface similar to Cafeteria diet group. In the duodenum, villus height correlated with body weight at 17 week and negatively with MLCK gene expression. In the colon, villus height correlated with the percentage of goblet cells. In conclusion, the CAF diet produced adaptive modifications of the intestine by increasing the absorptive area of the small intestine, the percentage of goblet cells and the inflammatory index at the duodenal level. GSPE supplementation can partially reverse the intestinal morphological changes induced by the high fat/sucrose diet when administered intermittently.