Preventive effect of a prebiotic fibre supplement on the development of osteoarthritis
J. Rios Osteoarthritis and Cartilage VOLUME 26, SUPPLEMENT 1, S343-S344, APRIL 01, 2018
Purpose: Obesity, and associated metabolic syndrome, has been linked with a variety of conditions, including musculoskeletal diseases. Using a rat model, we showed that a high-fat/high-sucrose (HFS) diet leads to increased body-fat, insulin resistance, leaky gut, intramuscular fat deposition, and osteoarthritis (OA)-like changes in the rat knee within 12-weeks (metabolic (Met) OA phenotype). Prebiotic fibre supplementation is a countermeasure to combat obesity, modulating body fat, insulin sensitivity, leaky gut, and may protect the knee from OA-like damage in a HFS diet model, but this last point has not been investigated systematically. Thus, the purpose of this study was to determine the effects of a prebiotic fibre supplementation on knee joint integrity in rats concurrently exposed to a HFS diet.
Methods: Twenty-four male, 12-week-old, Sprague Dawley rats were randomized into either a HFS diet (40% fat, 45% sucrose – HFS group, n = 12), or a HFS diet combined with prebiotic fibre supplementation (10% oligofructose – HFS+F group, n = 12) for 12 weeks. Eight chow-fed, age-matched animals, were included as lean controls. The primary outcome measures were % body fat, knee joint integrity, insulin sensitivity, cecal microbiota, and a marker of leaky gut (serum endotoxin).
Results: Prebiotic fibre supplementation was effective in preventing OA-like changes in the knees of rats exposed to the HFS diet. Moreover, prebiotic fibre supplementation improved insulin sensitivity, Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes ratio, as well as systemic endotoxin (lipopolysaccharide-LPS) levels; thereby normalizing levels of these markers to those of the chow-fed rats. Prebiotic fibre supplementation also resulted in 4% less body fat percent in HFS+F compared to the HFS group animals, however, these differences were not statistically significant (Figure 1).
Conclusions: On a background of a diet rich in fat and sugar, prebiotic fibre supplementation was an effective countermeasure for Met OA development. We speculate that the effectiveness of prebiotic fibre supplementation is related to its ability to prevent gut leaking, thereby altering the microbiota composition, which subsequently may have decreased systemic and local inflammation, thus preventing knee joint degeneration.