RESUMO

Taenia pisiformis infection causes important economic loss in farms. It is suggested that obesity has a major impact on infection and reproduction. We addressed the impact of T. pisiformis infection in normal and obese rabbits to evaluate its effect on parameters important in behavior and reproduction. T. pisiformis infection in obese rabbits decreased body weight. In the obese-infected rabbits, eosinophils and heterophiles were increased 23% by the infection (P ≤ 0.05). T. pisiformis decreased cholesterol by 13% in normal weight infected rabbits and 10% in obese group (P ≤ 0.05), while triglyceride and VLDL were increased by 23% and 45% in the non-infected obese group (P ≤ 0.05). The infection increased serum cortisol levels only in normal weight rabbits (P ≤ 0.05). Liver weight was 20% higher in obese and obese-infected rabbits (P ≤ 0.05). Testicular weight in obese-infected was 46% higher than normal weight (P ≤ 0.0001) and 20% more than the obese-non-infected (P ≤ 0.0001). Furthermore, the infection reduced the weight of submandibular glands in infected and obese-infected rabbits (P ≤ 0.05), body fat increased 10% in the obese-infected than in the obese, and infected group was 35% over the normal weight non-infected (P ≤ 0.01). Our results show that T. pisiformis alters metabolic characteristics in rabbits, which can impact on the production and welfare of animals.