Effect of exogenous leptin administration on high fat diet induced oxidative stress

The objective of the present study was to explore the tissue lipid peroxidation and antioxidant status in mice receiving exogenous leptin along with high fat diet for a period of 6 weeks. Significantly elevated levels of tissue thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), conjugated dienes (CD) and significantly lowered levels of glutathione and its related enzymes were observed in the liver, heart and kidney of mice fed with a high fat diet as compared with the control mice fed with a standard pellet diet. Subsequent to the treatment with high fat diet (ie., after the initial period of 30 days) exogenous leptin (230 microg kg(-1) body weight) was simultaneously administered along with the regular high fat diet every alternate day for 15 days. Leptin administration significantly lowered the tissue levels of TBARS, CD and elevated the activities of reduced glutathione (GSH), glutathione peroxidase (GPx) and glutathione S-transferase (GST) in both the control and high fat diet fed mice. Thus leptin supplementation was found to be effective in attenuating high fat diet induced oxidative stress.