Mitochondrial impairment following neonatal overfeeding: A comparison between normal and ischemic‐reperfused hearts

Overweight and obesity are established factors underpin several metabolic impairments, including the cardiovascular. Although the diversity of factors involved in overweight/obesity‐induced cardiovascular diseases, mitochondria has been highlighted due to its role in cardiac metabolism. As obesity can be originated in early postnatal life, the current study evaluates the effects of neonatal overfeeding on the cardiac mitochondrial bioenergetics and oxidative balance in rats that underwent an ischemia‐reperfusion insult. Seventy‐two hours after delivery, Wistar rat litters were randomly assigned into the control (C; nine pups per mother) and the Overfed (OF; three pups per mother) groups throughout the lactation period. At weaning, male offspring were fed with laboratory chow ad libitum until sacrifice at 30 and 60 days of life. Mitochondrial heart bioenergetics and oxidative balance showed to be deeply affected by neonatal overfeeding at both ages. Interestingly, after ischemia‐reperfusion insult I/R (Langendorff or mineral oil incubation), most parameters evaluated in OF animals were not influenced by additional ischemic‐reperfusion injury. Our findings demonstrated that suckling overfeeding deregulates cardiac mitochondrial alike to ischemia‐reperfusion insult by disengaging electrical mitochondrial coupling and potentiate oxidative stress, wherein the neonatal overfeeding shows to be so detrimental as I/R. Our findings support the concept that nutritional insults in the critical development periods increase the risk for cardiovascular disease and mitochondria impairments throughout life while oxidative damage change between molecular targets. Neonatal overfeeding triggers extended mitochondrial impairments in heart rats. Ischemia/reperfusion trends only health rats to oxidative stress.