(304) Effects of a suboptimal American diet and an anti-inflammatory diet on behavioral and physiological measures of pain in male and female mice

Obesity and chronic pain are often comorbid. Although pain is most frequently experienced in weight bearing joints, it is also common in other areas of the body as well, suggesting other contributing factors. Therefore, we developed a Suboptimal American Diet (SAD) to investigate the effects of poor diet on pain as we have shown that poor diet quality results in systemic inflammation and poor recovery from inflammatory injury. The SAD is high in refined sugar, carbohydrates, trans and saturated fatty acids in order to better model poor diet quality in Americans. In addition, we developed an Anti-inflammatory Diet (AID) to investigate whether the negative effects of poor diet could be prevented/ reversed. The AID includes EGCG, sulforaphane, resveratrol, curcumin, and ginseng; all known to have anti-inflammatory properties. Although this diet is a high fat diet (40% kcal), fats are derived from healthy sources, as opposed to those in traditional high-fat diets. During 15 weeks of diet exposure, SAD-fed animals showed significant weight gain and decreased mechanical sensitivity compared to the other animals. Interestingly, animals on the AID remained similar in weight to control animals despite consuming a diet high in fat, suggesting that it is the fat source that is detrimental and not the absolute amount of fat in the diet. The SAD is also high in carbohydrates and, as expected, these animals showed greater insulin resistance following a glucose tolerance test. Work is underway to determine whether the AID prevents/reduces the impact of inflammatory injury and whether the AID can be used as an intervention in those animals given chronic access to the SAD. These data will provide necessary information as to the potential of a specific diet to act as a preventative treatment (i.e., prior to surgery) or an intervention (i.e., following an injury).