Moderate physical exercise alone has a positive influence on the immune system(Reference Pedersen and Hoffman-Goetz1) but the effect of a high fat diet (↑LIPIDS)(Reference Kaminogawa and Nanno2) combined with moderate physical exercise in young people has not been established; the objective of this study was to assess whether a high fat diet and moderate physical exercise modifies the T-lymphocyte (TLc) population of Peyer's patches (PP) of young Balb/c mice. Thirty-two 21-d-old male mice were divided into four groups, two groups swam for 30 min, 5 d per week during 9 weeks (E groups) and two groups were left without exercise; one of the exercise and one without exercise were fed a standard diet (CONTROL) and the other two groups were fed a high fat diet (↑LIPIDS) (DIO Rodent Purified Diet, Cat. 58V8; energy: 3.78 kcal/g (15.81552 kJ/d)). Small intestines were dissected, PP were cut, macerated, filtered and centrifuged to obtain the lymphocyte pellet, cells were stained with anti-CD3+, CD4+ and CD8+ antibodies. The diet only increased the weight of mice who made exercise (25.7, sd 0.0) compared with non-exercise group (21.5, sd 2.8) and the control group (20.2, sd 1.4), P<0.005. CD3+ TLc (25.6, sd 1.0), CD3+/CD4+ (20.8, sd 1.3) and CD3+/CD8+ (2.62, sd 0.3) decreased significantly in the group ↑LIPIDS/E (in comparison with CONTROL/E: 38.8, sd 2.5, t 13.87; 33.5, sd 2.0, t 15.01; 4.93, sd 0.5, t 10.96, respectively), P⩽0.001. Thus, the diet did not change the weight of the animals but significantly altered the amount of T-cells, this probably due to the high content of saturated fat in the diet (2.91% from soya oil; 20.69% from lard) (Fig. 1).
This project was financed by Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México.