Behavioural NeuroscienceResearch PaperEarly life exposure to a high fat diet promotes long-term changes in dietary preferences and central reward signaling
Section snippets
Animals and early diet exposure
Mice were generated on a mixed C57Bl/6:129 background as part of our in-house breeding colony. These mice have been on a mixed background population for more than 10 years (Bale et al., 2000), with introduction of a new gene pool every two years by breeding with an F1 C57Bl/6: 129 cross. At 3 weeks of age, litters were exposed to the high fat diet (Research Diets, New Brunswick, NJ, USA) for 1 week. The high fat diet contained 4.73 kcal/g and consisted of 44.9% fat, 35.1% carbohydrate, and 20%
Macronutrient choice preference
In order to determine how early diet exposure affected adult dietary preferences, mice exposed to a high fat diet from 3 to 4 weeks of age were examined for macronutrient choice preference for 10 days beginning at 3 months of age. Preference for the high fat diet (reported as the percent of total calories consumed as high fat diet; Fig. 1A) was significantly greater in mice that had been exposed to the high fat diet during early life (P<0.05). Preference for the high protein diet was not
Discussion
Studies of food preferences in infants and children have shown that early exposure to different flavors can lead to increased acceptance of and preferences for these flavors in later life (Liem and Mennella 2002, Mennella and Beauchamp 2002). As children are increasingly exposed to foods high in fat during early life, it is important to determine how exposure to certain diets during this time may affect food preferences during adulthood and be a possible contributing factor to the increased
Conclusion
In conclusion, the present study demonstrates that a brief exposure to a palatable, high fat diet during early life programs an increased preference for this diet during adulthood that is not based on diet familiarity. Mechanistically, reduced DA signal transmission in the ventral striatum in these mice may result in an increased preference for the high fat diet in an attempt to normalize DA levels. The data then suggest that exposure to a palatable, high fat diet during early life may lead to
Acknowledgments
We thank K. Carlin for assistance with animal breeding and husbandry. This work was supported by the University of Pennsylvania Institute of Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, DK019525.
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Current address: Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, 2401 TRL, University of Pennsylvania, 125 S. 31st Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.