Serum metabolic signature of binge-like palatable food consumption in female rats by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy

Maladaptive eating behavior is a growing public health problem and compulsively eating excessive food in a short time, or binge eating, is a key symptom of many eating disorders. In order to investigate the binge-like eating behavior in female rats, induced by intermittent food restrictions/refeeding and frustration stress, we analyzed for the first time the metabolic profile obtained from serum of rats, through nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. In this experimental protocol, rats were exposed to chow food restricting/refeeding and frustration stress manipulation. This stress procedure consists of 15 min exposure to the odor and sight of a familiar chocolate paste, without access to it, just before offering the palatable food. In this model, a “binge-eating episode” was considered the significantly higher palatable food consumption within 2 h in restricted and stressed rats (R + S) than in the other three experimental groups: rats with no food restriction and no stress (NR + NS), only stressed rats (NR + S) or only restricted rats (R + NS). Serum samples from these four different rat groups were collected. The statistical analysis of the 1H NMR spectral profiles of the four sets of samples pointed to O- and N-acetyl glycoproteins as the main biomarkers for the discrimination of restriction effects. Other metabolites, such as threonine, glycine, glutamine, acetate, pyruvate and lactate, showed trends that may be useful to understand metabolic pathways involved in eating disorders. This study suggested that NMR-based metabolomics is a suitable approach to detect biomarkers related to binge-eating behavior.