Histomorfometric Analysis of Duodenum of Rats Submitted to Food Stress

Abstract

Stress was interpreted as a nonspecific reaction of the organism to a situation that would threaten its homeostasis. Several factors in the modern world can be related to this condition: the search for a perfect body, the labor market dispute or the pressure to conquer everything as fast as possible. Associated with these factors, one can add the intense, naturally stressful, routine in which man is inserted. At the experimental level, several effects are observed at a systemic and behavioral level in rats that have been submitted to food restriction models, finding that the gastrointestinal system is quite vulnerable to stress in general. In specific cases of food stress, it was observed that the manifestations vary according to the life stage of the animal and the applied model. In this sense, the present research aims to evaluate the influence of food restriction on the intestinal tunica morphology of rats submitted to a chronic food stress model. For this, 27 animals were divided into control (n = 11) and test (n = 16) groups. From the 60 th day of life, the test group was submitted to four stages, each one being performed in one day: 1) palatable diet; 2) visual stimulation to the diet, but without access; 3) fasting; 4) standard diet of the biotery. The four steps were repeated until the animals completed 90 days. In the morphometry of the duodenum were analyzed: length, width and area of vill, as well as area of intestinal gland (Lieberkühn). Statistical inference of data showed that the applied stress model affected the morphology of the stressed group, since the intestinal villi appeared wider and with less area in this group. The villi length as well as the intestinal gland area did not undergo morphological changes. The alterations found reinforce that the fasting process acts as a stressor and a predisposing factor for morphological alterations, as observed in other studies in our laboratory. However, there are not many studies in the literature that allow the knowledge of the consequences of this type of stress. In this case, further research is needed on the relationship between the gastrointestinal tract and the experimental model applied to elucidate such findings.