Efeito do Óleo de Coco sobre a Morfologia da Aorta de Ratos Obesos

Current study analyzes the influence of coconut oil on the morphology of the thorax aorta in 23 rats aged 120 days. The animals were separated into two groups, control (treated with standard ration for rodents) and obese (treated with a hypercaloric diet to induce obesity). After 90 days the control and obese groups were subdivided into two additional groups: C/ag, C/co, O/ag, O/co. On the 120th day the rats were euthanized with sodium pentobarbitol. The thorax aortas were removed and histologically processed. They were stained with Masson Trichromium and orcein-picrosirius-hematoxylin to visualize collagen components, smooth and elastic muscle, followed by volume density. Vessel thickness was evaluated by intima-media measure. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Tukey´s test were employed at 5% significance. The use of coconut oil in obese rats may have induced vascular re-modeling by decreasing the composition of collagen and increasing the smooth muscle cells in obese rats treated with coconut oil.