That adult humans possess brown fat is now accepted - but is the brown fat metabolically active? Does human brown fat actually combust fat to release heat? In this issue of the JCI, Ouellet et al. demonstrate that metabolism in brown fat really is increased when adult humans are exposed ...

Binge eating is a behavior that occurs in some eating disorders, as well as in obesity and in nonclinical populations. Both sugars and fats are readily consumed by human beings and are common components of binges. This chapter describes animal models of sugar and fat bingeing, which allow for a ...

The present study evaluates the influence of previous nutritional status, fish fed on diets supplemented with tea and methionine, on acute hypoxia tolerance and subsequent recovery of Sparus aurata juveniles. Four isonitrogenous (45% of protein) and isolipidic (18% lipid) diets were formulated to contain 0.3% methionine, 2.9% white tea dry ...

Low-grade inflammation is a characteristic of the obese state, and adipose tissue releases many inflammatory mediators. The source of these mediators within adipose tissue is not clear, but infiltrating macrophages seem to be especially important, although adipocytes themselves play a role. Obese people have higher circulating concentrations of many inflammatory ...

The present study investigated the effects of bodyweight (BW) gain on respiratory function and airway responsiveness in healthy Beagles using barometric whole body plethysmography (BWBP). Six adult dogs were examined before and after a fattening diet. The high-energy diet induced a mean increase in BW of 41±6%. BWBP basal parameters ...

In the present study, we aimed to examine the effects of soya oligosaccharides (SOS) and soya oligopeptides (SOP) on blood lipid levels, release of vasoactive substances, antioxidant activity and faecal bile acid (FBA) excretion in rats fed a high-fat diet (HFD). Male Sprague-Dawley rats were evenly divided into five groups ...

The prevalence of allergic diseases has increased dramatically during the last four decades and is paralleled by a striking increase in iron intake by infants in affluent societies. Several studies have suggested a link between increased iron intake and the marked increase in prevalence of allergic diseases. We hypothesized that ...

BACKGROUND: Short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) maintain human colonic function and may help prevent colonic disease. A study with ileostomists showed that starches acylated with specific SCFAs largely survive passage through the small intestine, but the percentage released in the colon has not been established. OBJECTIVE: The objective was to determine ...

Spontaneously hypertensive heart failure rats (SHHFs) take longer to develop compensated heart failure (HF) and congestive decompensation than common surgical models of HF. Isoproterenol (ISO) infusion can accelerate cardiomyopathy in young SHHFs, while dietary salt loading in hypertensive rats induces cardiac fibrosis, hypertrophy, and-in a minority-congestive HF. By combining ISO ...

Indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) metabolizes L-tryptophan to L-kynurenine, promotes immunosuppression and has been described as a consumer of superoxide. We discovered IDO expression in periaortic fat and tested the hypothesis that periarterial IDO functionally reduces agonist-induced contraction. Our model was the thoracic aorta, abdominal aorta and superior mesenteric artery of the ...

1. Effective nutritional approaches to counteract the negative effects of stress may provide food animal producers with useful alternatives to antibiotics. In this study, turkeys were fed on a standard diet, or the same diet supplemented with yeast extract (YE), to determine if YE would improve disease resistance in a ...

Abstract BACKGROUND: Impaired lung function has been linked to obesity and systemic inflammation. Pericardial fat has been shown to be associated with anomalies in cardiac structure, function and atherosclerosis. We hypothesized that pericardial fat may have a similar role in the impairment of lung function. METHODS: Cross-sectional associations of pericardial ...

Dietary factors are suggested to be involved in recent increases in the prevalence of asthma. The differences in dietary intake of 23 asthmatic and 317 non-asthmatic students were investigated, who were chosen by multistage stratified cluster sampling. The dietary data were assessed by food frequency questionnaire and a 24-h recall ...

The present study investigated the effect of β-1,3/1,6-glucan on growth, haematology, innate immunity and resistance against dactylogyrids on the spotted rose snapper (Lutjanus guttatus). Fish were fed during five weeks with commercial diet (control group) and same diet supplemented with three levels of β-glucans (0.05%, 0.1% y 0.5%/kg feed). The ...

Background Obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) is commonly associated with obesity and can be improved by weight loss. Changes in upper airway size related to regional fat loss may mediate the improvement in OSA. This study aimed to assess changes in upper airway size and regional facial and abdominal fat with ...

The decrease in the number of children living on traditional farms in France during early childhood and changes in diet could both play a role in the increase of asthma prevalence over the last decades. This article aims to assess i) the association of farming lifestyle in childhood and asthma ...

Habitually active adults (ACT) typically exhibit lower postprandial lipemia, a condition that may attenuate oxidative stress and endothelial dysfunction following a high-fat meal (HFM), compared with inactive adults (INA). Our objective was to compare triglycerides (TAG), superoxide dismutase activity (SOD), oxidative stress (thiobarbituric reactive substances; TBARS), and brachial artery flow-mediated ...

The peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ (PPAR-γ) is a nuclear receptor that is activated by lipids to induce the expression of genes involved in lipid and glucose metabolism, thereby converting nutritional signals into metabolic consequences. PPAR-γ is the target of the thiazolidinedione (TZD) class of insulin-sensitizing drugs, which have been widely prescribed ...

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: The effect of food intake on caveolin expression in relation to insulin signalling was studied in skeletal muscle and adipocytes from retroperitoneal (RP) and subcutaneous (SC) adipose tissue, comparing fasted (F) to not fasted (NF) rats that had been fed a control or high-fat (HF) diet for 72 ...

Stable isotopes of neonatal vertebrates reflect those of their mother's diet and foraging location. Evaluating feeding strategies and habitat use of neonates is consequently complicated by the maternal isotopic signal and its subsequent elimination with growth. Thus, methods that measure the loss of the maternal signal, i.e. when the isotopic ...

Cinnamaldehyde (CA), one of the active components of cinnamon, has been known to exert several pharmacological effects such as anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, anti-tumor and anti-diabetic activities. However, its anti-obesity effect has not been reported yet. We investigated the anti-differentiation effect of CA on 3T3-L1 preadipocytes, and anti-obese activity of CA was ...

Persimmon (Diospyros kaki) is a very popular fruit in East Asian countries, but its peels are not consumed despite the fact that they contain many antioxidants such as carotenoids and polyphenols. We prepared a fat-soluble extract from persimmon peel (PP) and fed type 2 diabetic Goto-Kakizaki (GK) rats an AIN-93G ...

The ketogenic diet (KD) is an effective treatment for epilepsy, but its mechanisms of action are poorly understood. We investigated the hypothesis that the KD inhibits mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway signaling. The expression of pS6 and pAkt, markers of mTOR pathway activation, was reduced in hippocampus and liver ...

In virtually all organisms, life expectancy is profoundly affected by caloric intake. For example, dietary restriction (DR; a feeding regimen of fewer calories compared to the ad libitum level without causing malnutrition) has been shown to lengthen, whereas hypercaloric (HC) diet feeding to shorten, lifespan. Recent findings in invertebrates indicate ...

Metabolic syndrome-associated dyslipidemia is mainly initiated by hepatic overproduction of the plasma lipoproteins carrying triglycerides. Here we examined the effects of the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPAR)-β/δ activator GW501516 on high-fat diet (HFD)-induced hypertriglyceridemia and hepatic fatty acid oxidation. Exposure to the HFD caused hypertriglyceridemia that was accompanied by reduced hepatic ...

Most teleost fish are known to require high levels of dietary proteins. Such high protein intake could have significant effects, particularly on insulin-regulated gene expression. We therefore analyzed the effects of an increase in the ratio of dietary carbohydrates/proteins on the refeeding activation of the Akt-TOR signaling pathways in rainbow ...

Maternal diabetes may compromise infant arachidonic acid (AA) status and development. This study tested if maternal AA supplementation improves neurodevelopment in adult offspring. Rat dams were randomized into 6 groups: Saline-Placebo, streptozotocin-induced diabetes with glucose controlled at <13mmol/L, or poorly controlled at 13-20mmol/L using insulin; and fed either a Control ...

The purpose of this study was to elucidate the effects of the recovery from dietary zinc-deficiency on the number of total white blood cells (WBCs), neutrophils, eosinophils and basophils, and plasma zinc and corticosterone concentrations in weanling male Sprague Dawley rats. Rats (n=34) of the zinc-deficient diet (0.6 mg zinc/kg ...

Eosinophilic gastroenteropathies, such as eosinophilic esophagitis and eosinophilic colitis, have classically been treated with swallowed inhaled corticosteroids or oral corticosteroids. More recent studies have found elimination and elemental diets to be effective treatment alternatives to steroids. In this case series we describe the treatment of three children using nutritional management ...

It has been almost two decades since dietary restriction was first shown to increase Drosophila lifespan. Since then, understanding this phenomenon advanced as groups worked to identify what quality of restricted diet matters: calories or a specific nutrient. The problem is complex because is it difficult to measure what a ...

Head kidney leukocytes isolated from Atlantic salmon fed either a diet based on fish oil (FO) or soy bean oil (VO) were used in order to evaluate if different lipid sources could contribute to cellular activation of the salmon innate immune system. A specific inhibitor of p38 MAPK, SB202190, was ...

Suboptimal developmental environments program offspring to lifelong health complications including affective and cognitive disorders. Little is known about the effects of suboptimal intra-uterine environments on associative learning and motivational behavior. We hypothesized that maternal isocaloric low protein diet during pregnancy and lactation would impair offspring associative learning and motivation as ...

Evidence from animal experiments now demonstrates that prenatal vitamin D levels influence brain development. The aims of this study were to examine isolation-induced pup ultrasonic vocalizations and maternal-infant interactions using a pup-retrieval test in developmental vitamin D (DVD) deficient and control rats. Sprague-Dawley rats were fed a vitamin D deficient ...

Patterns of offspring development reflect the availability of energy and nutrients, limitations on an individual's capacity to use available resources, and tradeoffs between the use of nutrients to support current metabolic demands and tissue growth. To determine if the long period of offspring dependency in bats is associated with the ...

Hundreds of stranded harbor seals pups (Phoca vitulina) are brought to wildlife rescue centers every year. Typical hand-rearing diets include artificial milk-replacers and diets based on macerated fish fed via gavage, but weight gains are often low and mortality rates can be high. This study compared survival and weight gain ...

Maternal hypercholesterolemia has been shown to lead to fetal intra-uterine growth retardation (IUGR) in rabbits. The effects of a long term maternal hyperlipidemic and hypercholesterolemic diet on embryo, fetal and post-natal development, have not been addressed so far. Rabbit does were fed either a hypercholesterolemic (0.2%) hyperlipidic (8%) (HH) or ...

Caffeine, like malnutrition, can produce behavioral and electrophysiological alterations. However, the interaction of both factors remains unclear. Here this interaction has been studied in male Wistar rats previously malnourished during the lactation period by feeding their dams the "regional basic diet" of Northeast Brazil, containing about 8% protein, predominantly from ...

Placental efficiency is a predictor of fetal growth and development, which is also controlled by maternal gestational health and diet. The present study investigated the effects of a gestational low-protein diet on offspring growth capacity as well as the diet's contribution to altered expression of placental genes associated with the ...

Offspring of rats fed high-fat diets during pregnancy and lactation develop glucose intolerance and islet dysfunction in adulthood. Because other models of developmental programming of glucose intolerance are associated with defective islet development, we investigated whether high-fat exposure during fetal or neonatal life impairs islet development and function, thereby contributing ...

The optimal diet for pregnancy that is complicated by excessive weight is unknown. We aimed to examine the effects of a low-glycemic load (low-GL) diet in overweight and obese pregnant women. We randomly assigned 46 overweight or obese pregnant women to receive a low-GL or a low-fat diet. Participants received ...

Maternal obesity can influence susceptibility to obesity and type 2 diabetes in progeny. We examined the relationship of maternal insulin resistance (IR), a metabolically important consequence of increased adiposity, to adverse consequences of obesity for fetal development. We used mice heterozygous for a null allele of the insulin receptor (Insr) ...

Birth weight in humans has been inversely associated with adult disease risk. Results of animal studies have varied depending on species, strain, and treatment. We compared birth weight and adult health in offspring following 50% maternal undernutrition on gestation days (GD) 1-15 (UN1-15) or GD 10-21 (UN10-21) in Sprague Dawley ...

Supplementation with probiotics has been shown to prevent gastrointestinal damage possibly through preservation of growth factors. We tested the hypothesis that probiotics, prebiotics, or synbiotics supplementation preserves intestinal insulin-like growth factors (IGFs) and epidermal growth factors (EGFs) in formula-fed neonatal rats. At birth (postnatal day 0 [P0]), neonatal rat pups ...

Biological responses to environmental stress, including nutrient limitation are mediated in part by epigenetic modifications including DNA methylation. Insulin-like growth factor II (Igf2) and H19 are subject to epigenetic modifications leading to genomic imprinting. The present study was designed to test the effect of maternal low protein diet on the ...

Resveratrol (Res) has been associated with protective effects against oxidative stress. This study evaluated the effect of Res over lipid peroxidation, antioxidant defense, hepatic sirtuin 1 (SIRT1), which up-regulates antioxidant enzymes, and copper/zinc superoxide dismutase (Cu/Zn SOD) in adult offspring whose mothers were protein restricted during lactation. Lactating Wistar rats ...

Obesity in pregnancy significantly increases the risk of the offspring developing obesity after birth. The aims of this study were to test the hypothesis that maternal obesity increases oxidative stress during fetal development, and to determine whether administration of an antioxidant supplement to pregnant Western diet-fed rats would prevent the ...

Bisphenol-A (BPA) is a component of polycarbonate resins, and, lately, concern has been raised about its potential negative effects on human health. BPA is an estrogen analog and, in addition, it can act as a DNA hypomethylator. We examined the effects of gestational exposure to BPA on several behaviors in ...

The mechanistic link between obese parents and obese offspring and the relative role of genes, and a shared environment is not completely understood. Animal models help us to differentiate between genetic and environmental factors, and the interaction between the two. However, the willingness of researchers to blend results from multiple ...

Environmental conditions promote weight gain in children and adults, with early nutritional states and the availability of energy condensed/high-fat palatable diets appearing to facilitate the development of obesity. Little is known about the extent to which prenatal and postnatal dietary manipulations alter the response of the adult offspring to high-fat, ...

Stress in combination with genetic susceptibility is a factor in the development of hypertension. We used borderline hypertensive rats to investigate whether exposure to high-fat and/or junk-food diet at different stages of ontogeny has programing consequences on stress responses. Wistar dams were fed a high- or low-fat diet for 6 ...