Taurine and vitamin E supplementations have minimal effects on body composition, hepatic lipids, and blood hormone and metabolite concentrations in healthy Sprague Dawley rats

Abstract

Portia S Allen,1 Andrew W Brown,2 Michelle M Bohan Brown,3 Walter H Hsu,4 Donald C Beitz1 1Department of Animal Science, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA; 2Nutrition Obesity Research Center and Office of Energetics, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA; 3Department of Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Molecular Biology, 4Department of Biomedical Sciences, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA Background: As prescriptions for off-label pharmaceutical use and autonomous administration of over-the-counter nutraceuticals become mainstream, thorough assessments of these compounds are warranted. Objective: To determine the effects of gemfibrozil, rosiglitazone, metformin, taurine, and vitamin E on body composition, hepatic lipids, and metabolic hormone and blood metabolite concentrations in a healthy, outbred rat cohort. Methods: Male Sprague Dawley rats were fed a purified 10 kcal% from fat diet for 56 days and assigned to either the diet alone (control) group or the diet plus oral administration of gemfibrozil (34 mg/kg), metformin (500 mg/kg), rosiglitazone (3 mg/kg), taurine (520 mg/kg), or vitamin E (200 mg/kg) group. Results: Rosiglitazone administration resulted in a 56% increase in carcass adiposity, cautioning potential prescriptive off-label use. Taurine supplementation had no adverse effects on evaluated parameters. A modest but significant increase in liver triacylglycerol content was observed with vitamin E supplementation compared with control (Δ 17.2 g triacylglycerol/100 g liver lipid). Conclusion: The evaluated pharmaceuticals had effects in a healthy population similar to the reported effects in their target population, and the nutraceuticals had minimal effects on the measured physiological parameters. Keywords: thiazolidinedione, gemfibrozil, metformin, animal model