Abstract
High fat and high sugar diets and lack of physical activity are believed to contribute to the increasing rates of obesity in wealthy societies. This trend is associated with a parallel increase in the prevalence of insulin resistance (IR) and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Diets contains different types of lipids, and not only the quantity but also the quality of dietary lipids modulates lipid metabolism and are involved in these nutritional associated pathologies. Moreover, the quality of dietary lipids influences the biological membrane composition and thus their functions. So, membrane fluidity, cellular signalisation pathways, protein translocation into and across the membrane and many enzymatic activities, which are crucial for cell functions, are influenced by membrane lipid composition. However, some dietary nutrients as polyphenols may also modulate lipid metabolism and thus prevent against hepatic steatosis and/or IR. In that aim, this work was designed to determine, firstly, the preventive effect of polyphenols in rats fed a high fat high sucrose diet and, secondly, the impact of the quantity and the quality of dietary lipids, on triglycerides (TG) and membranes phospholipids (PL) content and/or fatty acid composition and on lipid metabolism in the whole tissue and particularly in mitochondria. Indeed, mitochondria are both a major site for fat metabolism and the main source of reactive oxygen species in hepatocytes and they are postulated to play a central role in the pathogenesis of NAFLD and IR. Our results showed clearly that polyphenols modulate differently lipid metabolism in tissues. In liver, polyphenols prevent lipid accumulation and hepatic steatosis by activating fatty acid oxidation. In skeletal muscle, polyphenols regulate membrane fatty acids composition and fatty acid and glucose transporters expression, thus preventing lipid accumulation and enhancing glucose transport. These modifications may prevent IR in skeletal muscle. In addition, dietary fatty acids quantity and quality influenced significantly fatty acids composition of membrane phospholipids from liver mitochondria, particularly cardiolipin; and thus altered mitochondria functions and liver lipid metabolism which could play a role in the NAFLD pathogenesis.