Objective To evaluate the reliability of metabolic and pathologic parameters in the high fat diet-induced nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) rat model using a gastric perfusion method.Methods Forty-seven male Wistar rats were randomly assigned to either the normal control group (N) or the NAFLD model group (M) .There was no significant difference in body weight between the two groups.All the rats were housed under specific pathogen-free (SPF) conditions and acclimated with a normal diet for one week.Afterwards, the M group was administered a high fat diet by gastric perfusion, and the N group was administered 0.95% NS.Rats from both groups were sacrificed at the end of the 4th, 8th, and 12th week for analysis.Body length and weight was recorded for each rat, as well as the liver weight for calculating the liver Index (LI) .Serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) were measured by standard biochemical methods.Formalin-fixed liver sections were stained with hematoxylin-eosin and were graded for the degree of fatty composition and inflammation.Results Two rats died during the experiment, so that only 45 were included in the analysis.The M group showed pathological changes that were typical of NAFLD, and the degree of fat degeneration was homogeneous.Compared with the N group, the M group had significantly higher LI (P=0.000) , ALT level (P=0.006) , and AST level (P=0.000) .Conclusion A NAFLD model can be successfully induced by 12 weeks of gastric perfusion with high fat diet in adult rats.The metabolic and pathologic parameters produced by this method are consistent with NAFLD.
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