Background: As prescriptions for off-label pharmaceutical use and autonomous administration of over-the-counter nutraceuticals become mainstream, thorough assessments of these compounds are warranted.
Objective: To determine the effects of gemfibrozil, rosiglitazone, metformin, taurine, and vitamin E on body composition, hepatic lipids, and metabolic hormone and blood metabolite concentrations in a healthy, outbred rat cohort.
Methods: Male Sprague Dawley rats were fed a purified 10 kcal% from fat diet for 56 days and assigned to diet alone (control) or diet plus oral administration of gemfibrozil (34 mg/kg), metformin (500 mg/kg), rosiglitazone (3 mg/kg), taurine (520 mg/kg), or vitamin E (200 mg/kg).
Results: Rosiglitazone administration resulted in a 56% increase in carcass adiposity, cautioning potential prescriptive off-label use. Taurine supplementation had no adverse effects on evaluated parameters. A modest but significant increase in liver triacylglycerol content was observed with vitamin E supplementation compared with control (Δ 17.2 g triacylglycerol/100 g liver lipid).
Conclusions: The evaluated pharmaceuticals had effects in a healthy population similar to the reported effects in their target population and the nutraceuticals had minimal effects on the measured physiological parameters.
Keywords: animal model; gemfibrozil; metformin; thiazolidinedione.