Abstract
Obesity is a public health problem characterized by increased accumulation of fat into adipose tissues leading to oxidative stress, dyslipidemia, and chronic inflammatory status. We used an experimental model of high-fat diet-induced obesity to analyze the link between dyslipidemia, oxidative stress, and fat accumulation into adipose tissue of rats, as well as the involvement of intracellular mediators such as transition metals on signal transduction. We also looked at the ability of a grape seed and skin extract (GSSE) from a Tunisian cultivar to prevent fat-induced disturbances. Data showed that a high-fat diet (HFD) provoked dyslipidemia into plasma which is linked to an oxidative stress, an accumulation of transition metals such as manganese, copper, and zinc and a depletion of iron. GSSE prevented dyslipidemia by modulating lipase activity, together with increased antioxidant capacity and depletion of transition metals as well as of free radicals such as O2 (-) and OH. These data indicated that GSSE has important preventive effects on HFD-induced obesity and oxidative stress whose transduction seems to involve transition metals. GSSE should be used as a safe anti-obesity agent that could find potential applications in metabolic disorders involving transition metals dyshomeostasis.