Cardiometabolic impacts of saturated fatty acids: are they all comparable?

In last decades, a phenomenon named nutrition transition has been observed in many countries around the world. It has been characterised by increased consumption of fat-rich diets, predisposing to cardiometabolic diseases and high prevalence of the obesity. In the dietary recommendations cited to prevent metabolic diseases, there is a consensus to decrease intake of saturated fatty acids (SFA) to less than 10% of total energy intake, as recommended by the Food Safety Authorities. However, fatty acids of different chain lengths may exhibit different cardiometabolic effects. Thus, our major aim was to review the cardiometabolic effects of different classes of SFA according to carbon chain length, i.e. short-, medium- and long-chains. The review emphasises that not all SFA may have harmful cardiometabolic effects since short- and medium-chain SFA can provide beneficial health effects and participate to the prevention of metabolic disorders.

Glycine Supplementation in Obesity Worsens Glucose Intolerance through Enhanced Liver Gluconeogenesis.

Interactions between mitochondria and the endoplasmic reticulum, known as MAMs, are altered in the liver in obesity, which contributes to disruption of the insulin signaling pathway. In addition, the plasma level of glycine is decreased in obesity, and the decrease is strongly correlated with the severity of insulin resistance. Certain nutrients have been shown to regulate MAMs; therefore, we tested whether glycine supplementation could reduce insulin resistance in the liver by promoting MAM integrity. Glycine (5 mM) supported MAM integrity and insulin response in primary rat hepatocytes cultured under control and lipotoxic (palmitate 500 µM) conditions for 18 h. In contrast, in C57 BL/6 JOlaHsd mice (male, 6 weeks old) fed a high-fat, high-sucrose diet (HFHS) for 16 weeks, glycine supplementation (300 mg/kg) in drinking water during the last 6 weeks (HFHS-Gly) did not reverse the deleterious impact of HFHS-feeding on liver MAM integrity. In addition, glycine supplementation worsened fasting glycemia and glycemic response to intraperitoneal pyruvate injection compared to HFHS. The adverse impact of glycine supplementation on hepatic gluconeogenesis was further supported by the higher oxaloacetate/acetyl-CoA ratio in the liver in HFHS-Gly compared to HFHS. Although glycine improves MAM integrity and insulin signaling in the hepatocyte in vitro, no beneficial effect was found on the overall metabolic profile of HFHS-Gly-fed mice.