Influence of δ-Amino levulinic acid on body fat, body weight, and blood property in diet induced obese dogs

Abstract

δ-Amino levulinic acid（δALA or δ-ALA）is the first compound in the porphyrin synthesis pathway, which leads to heme, which can promote mitochondrial enzyme activity by functioning as a coenzyme in the mitochondrial electron transport chain to produce ATP. ALA has been reported to have potentials to improve energy metabolism and has been shown to inhibit accumulation of intra abdominal fat in rats. As such, we sought to determine whether or not ALA supplementation can exhibit the same fat preventative/reductive capacity in diet induced obese dogs. Body weight, body fat and fecal fatty acid composition were measured, plasma biochemistry analysis were performed. After 26 and 36 days of ALA supplementation, the rate of increasing weight in diet induced obese animals was 50% less than that of controlled animals which were being fed a high fat diet, and exhibited significantly lower（p＜0.05）amounts of body fat % after 26 and 36 days. The amount of fecal saturated fatty acid which recovered from the ALA group, at the end of the ALA supplement period, was 15% higher than that of the control group（62.9% versus 56.1% of total fatty acid）. This would indirectly suggest that ALA supplementation led to decreasing of fatdigestion-rate in diet. In addition, based on the results observed in our study and the data of pre-study by using rats, we hypothesize that ALA supplementation increased baseline metabolic levels in diet obese dogs like rats, and increases the rate of fatty acid beta-oxidation due to the availability of increased disposable levels of mitochondrial produced ATP.