Abstract
Summary
Weanling Osborne Mendel male rats had one or both inguinal fat depots, or one or both testicular fat depots removed. Another group was subjected to an identical operation but the fat pads were not excised (sham operated). Postsurgically, the rats were fed a high fat diet with progressive obesity developing during the 32 weeks of the experiment. Mean food intakes, growth rates and percentage of body fat (36 to 41%) were similar for all groups of rats. The surgically removed fat depots did not regenerate. In the group with the inguinal fat depots removed there was a visible depression at the surgical site due to the absence of the fat pad. Abdominal fat depots shifted to compensate for the removed testicular depots with no disfiguration apparent in the live rat. At autopsy, fat depots such as interscapular, axillary, perirenal and retroperitoneal, omental and mesenteric, and xiphoid weighed the same in operated and sham-operated rats.
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