Suppressed Fat Accumulation in Rats Fed a Histidine-Enriched Diet

The effect on body fat accumulation on male Wistar rats undergoing continuous feeding with a histidine-enriched diet was investigated. Five-week-age rats were assigned to two groups and were fed either the control diet (purified diet AIN-76∨TM) or the histidine-enriched diet containing 3% histidine for 28 days. It was observed that both adipose tissue masses in retroperitoneal and epididymal areas of rats fed histidine-enriched diet significantly decreased (p less than 0.05) compared to those of control rats, while there was no significant difference in the food efficiency ratio between them. The blood levels of histidine derivatives of 3-methylhistidine and carnosine were significantly (p less than 0.05) increased in the rats fed a histidine-enriched diet, whereas there were no significant different between the histidine-enriched diet and control groups in the general amino acid distribution. Our results demonstrate that a histidine-enriched diet suppresses body fat accumulation in rats.