Experimental models of alimentary obesity in rats

Among existing genetic and non-genetic models of obesity, the most widely used are the models of diet-induced obesity in rodents due to their relatively easy reproducibility and similarities to human pathogenesis of obesity. Within this review, we provide the analysis of diet-induced obesity models in rats, highlight attractive strengths as well as disadvantages of high-fat diets, fat or sugar choice diets, “cafeteria diets”, and “western diet”. Potential obesogenic mechanisms of the discussed models are analyzed. The directions of further studies required for an increase in reproducibility of experimental diet-induced obesity are proposed.