Low-fat diet, and medium-fat diets containing coconut oil and soybean oil exert different metabolic effects in untrained and treadmill-trained mice.

Background: Diets containing fats of different proportions and types have been demonstrated to influence metabolism. These fats differ in long chain fatty acids (LCFAs) or medium chain fatty acids (MCFAs) content. In our laboratory using swimming as the training modality, MCFAs increased endurance attributed to increased activities of oxidative enzymes.

Deletion of the transcriptional coactivator PGC1α in skeletal muscles is associated with reduced expression of genes related to oxidative muscle function.

The expression of the transcriptional coactivator PGC1α is increased in skeletal muscles during exercise. Previously, we showed that increased PGC1α leads to prolonged exercise performance (the duration for which running can be continued) and, at the same time, increases the expression of branched-chain amino acid (BCAA) metabolism-related enzymes and genes that are involved in supplying substrates for the TCA cycle. We recently created mice with PGC1α knockout specifically in the skeletal muscles (PGC1α KO mice), which show decreased mitochondrial content.