Diastolic Hypertension Produced by High Fat Diets and Dietary Stresses. ∗

Abstract

Summary

Four normal adult dogs were subjected to rather intense dietary stresses and irregularities over a prolonged period of time. Basically these dietary manipulations consisted of the following: (1) A prolonged preliminary fast followed by realimentation with diets containing 50 to 70% of the calories from beef suet and butter and fed at a level of from 60 to 120 cal/M²/hr. These “fat episodes” were repeated 6 times in 14 months in the first experimental period and 3 times in 10 months during the second experimental period. (2) The production of marked obesity by a high calory diet. (3) A long period on a low calory diet of raw horse meat which caused marked weight loss. (4) Return to the normal kennel diet. As a result of these dietary manipulations, the animals gradually developed a highly significant diastolic hypertension which is still present while on the normal kennel diet approximately 34 months after the end of the last fat episode of Experimental Period I.