Animals

Twelve weanling male Sprague Dawley rats were obtained from animal house facility of National Institute of Nutrition (Hyderabad, India). All the procedures involved in animal experimentation were carried out in accordance with Institutional Animal Ethical Committee following international standards. All experimental protocols were approved by the Institutional Animal Ethical Committee of National Institute of Nutrition (Hyderabad, India) and the experiments were carried out following the approved protocols. Animals were housed in laboratory cages at 23 °C under a 12 h light/dark cycle. Rats were divided equally into three groups and fed with either experimental diet containing 20% Peanut oil, standard nutrients with starch or fructose as the source of carbohydrate or diet containing 20% Peanut oil, standard nutrients and 1% cholesterol with fructose as the source of carbohydrate as described in Table 1. All the animals were fed on respective experimental diets and at the end of 3 months, fasting blood was collected and plasma was separated and analyzed for lipids, glucose and insulin. Plasma glucose, triglycerides and cholesterol were estimated using enzymatic methods (Biosystems, Spain) and insulin by ELISA using kit from Marcodia, Spain. Total cholesterol from islets was estimated by enzymatic kit method (Biosystem Spain).