Krill Oil and a Key Fat-Regulating Protein in Obese Rats

This animal study looked at how krill oil might influence a protein called sortilin, which plays a role in how the body manages fat storage and inflammation. Researchers fed rats a high-fat diet for 12 weeks to induce obesity, then gave one group daily krill oil supplementation alongside the diet, comparing results to rats on a standard diet and rats on the high-fat diet alone.

As expected, the high-fat diet group gained more weight and showed higher cholesterol, blood sugar, and insulin resistance markers. In their tissues, sortilin levels dropped in the liver but rose in fat tissue, alongside increases in the inflammatory marker TNF-α.

Rats given krill oil had lower blood cholesterol and showed a reversal of the tissue-specific sortilin and TNF-α pattern seen with the high-fat diet: sortilin and TNF-α rose in the liver but fell in fat tissue. The researchers suggest this shift may reflect krill oil helping to rebalance lipid handling and inflammatory signaling in these tissues.