Rats

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Rats have also been used in the diet-induced obesity model. Commonly used in medical research, rats were specifically chosen to study the diet-induced obesity model because of the features that they share with humans. One such characteristic is insulin resistance, which comes with diet-induced obesity in both rats and humans. Additionally, obesity remains in both species for long periods of time after it has initially set in. Because of the commonalities between the two, rats may prove to be helpful in the search for the cause of human obesity. [1] For example, in one experiment, male Sprague-Dawley rats were given either a low fat or a high fat diet, with the high fat diet containing 35% more fat than the low fat diet. The results of the study illustrate that the high fat diet rats had a higher adiposity index than the low fat diet rats. [2]

References

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  1. ^ "Selective breeding for diet-induced obesity and resistance in Sprague-Dawley rats". American Journal of Physiology. 273.
  2. ^ "Propensity to high-fat diet-induced obesity in rats is associated with changes in the gut microbiota and gut inflammation". American Journal of Physiology. 299.