Abstract

The objective of this work was to evaluate the effects dietary of vinegar on body weight, and blood metabolites of healthy rats fed a conventional diet, and of obese rats fed a high-caloric diet.  Twenty male Wistar rats were used. Ten of them were healthy ones (normal body condition) and were fed with conventional diet. The other 10 rats were obese and were fed with high-caloric diet. Plasma glucose, triglycerides, cholesterol, high- and low-density lipoproteins (HDL and LDL) concentrations were measured weekly from 0 to 4 weeks.Healthy and obese rats were randomly assigned to control (water) and oral vinegar (0.8 ml/kg body weight) supplementation groups. Vinegar reduced total gain and average daily weight gain in both healthy and obese rats. From 1 to 4 weeks, plasma glucose was reduced by vinegar supplementation only in obese rat. From 2 to 4 weeks, plasma triglycerides and total cholesterol were also reduced by vinegar only in obese rat. Vinegar did not affect plasma HDL and LDL. It is concluded that vinegar might serve as a protective measure to avoid excessive body weight gains and high plasma concentrations of glucose, triglycerides and cholesterol in obese patients fed high-caloric diets.

Key words: Vinegar, glucose, cholesterol, triglycerides, obesity.