Consequences of Nutritional Obesity on Thyroid Tissue

Abstract

Summary

Nutritional obesity was obtained in rats by ad libitum overeating of a simple diet. In these animals, feeding a less rich food resulted in a quick loss of their increased fat content.

By selection a strain of rats could be obtained which (a) increase their fat content to amounts exceptional in the original strain, and (b) are less able to lose their increased fat content when subjected to the “slimming” diet.

In obese animals the ¹³¹I uptake of the thyroid was conspicuously decreased during the fattening period, nor did it increase when the animals were subjected to the “slimming” diet.

Observations on thyroid activity and histology parallel those previously made on the anterior pituitary histology of the same rats.