Soybean oil treatment impairs glucose-stimulated insulin secretion and changes fatty acid composition of normal and diabetic islets

We investigated the effect of sub-chronic soybean oil (SO) treatment on the insulin secretion and fatty acid composition of islets of Langerhans obtained from Goto-Kakizaki (GK), a model of type 2 diabetes, and normal Wistar rats. We observed that soybean-treated Wistar rats present insulin resistance and defective islet insulin secretion when compared with untreated Wistar rats. The decrease in insulin secretion occurred at all concentrations of glucose and arginine tested. Furthermore we observed that soybean-treated normal islets present a significant decrease in two saturated fatty acids, myristic and heneicosanoic acids, and one monounsaturated eicosenoic acid, and the appearance of the monounsaturated erucic acid. Concerning diabetic animals, we observed that soybean-treated diabetic rats, when compared with untreated GK rats, present an increase in plasma non-fasting free fatty acids, an exacerbation of islet insulin secretion impairment in all conditions tested and a significant decrease in the monounsaturated palmitoleic acid. Altogether our results show that SO treatment results in a decrease of insulin secretion and alterations on fatty acid composition in normal and diabetic islets. Furthermore, the impairment of insulin secretion, islet erucic acid and fasting plasma insulin levels are similar in treated normal and untreated diabetic rats, suggesting that SO could have a deleterious effect on β-cell function and insulin sensitivity.