Gender Differences in the Impact of a High-Fat, High-Sugar Diet in Skeletal Muscles of Young Female and Male Mice

Abstract

In the context of the increasing number of obese individuals, a major problem is represented by obesity and malnutrition in children. This condition is mainly ascribable to unbalanced diets characterized by high intakes of fat and sugar. Childhood obesity and malnutrition are not only associated with concurrent pathologies but potentially compromise adult life. Considering the strict correlation among systemic metabolism, obesity, and skeletal muscle health, we wanted to study the impact of juvenile malnutrition on the adult skeletal muscle. To this aim, 3-week-old C56BL/6 female and male mice were fed for 20 weeks on a high-fat. high-sugar diet, and their muscles were subjected to a histological evaluation. MyHCs expression, glycogen content, intramyocellular lipids, mitochondrial activity, and capillary density were analyzed on serial sections to obtain the metabolic profile. Our observations indicate that a high-fat, high-sugar diet alters the metabolic profile of skeletal muscles in a sex-dependent way and induces the increase in type II fibers, mitochondrial activity, and lipid content in males, while reducing the capillary density in females. These data highlight the sex-dependent response to nutrition, calling for the development of specific strategies and for a systematic inclusion of female subjects in basic and applied research in this field.