Decreased lipolysis and enhanced glycerol and glucose utilization by adipose tissue prior to development of obesity in monosodium glutamate (MSG) treated-rats

OBJECTIVE

To determine the metabolic alterations that lead to the neonatal administration of monosodium glutamate (MSG), which results in arrested growth and obesity. ANIMALS AND DESIGN: Wistar rats were injected 5 times, every other day, with 4 g of MSG/kg b.w. or with hyperosmotic saline (controls), within the first 10 days of life, and were studied at the age of 30 days.

RESULTS

Body weight was lower, whereas adipocyte lipid content, cell diameter, surface area and volume were higher in MSG rats than in controls. Plasma glucose, insulin, NEFA, glycerol and triglyceride levels, and in vitro production of NEFA by lumbar fat pad pieces incubated under basal conditions or in the presence of epinephrine and epinephrine plus glucose in the media were lower in MSG than in control rats. In the same fat pad pieces, the conversion of 1-14C-glycerol into fatty acids was always enhanced and its conversion into glyceride glycerol was enhanced when incubations were carried out in the presence of epinephrine or glucose. Both the hormone sensitive lipase activity and mRNA expression were lower in adipose tissue from MSG rats. Besides, the number of insulin receptors, lipid synthesis from U14C glucose, 3H-2-deoxy D-glucose uptake and cellular GLUT4 translocation index were higher in adipocytes from MSG rats than from the controls.

CONCLUSION

It is proposed that an enhanced insulin sensitivity in 1 month old MSG rats is responsible for the decreased lipolytic activity and enhanced glucose uptake. In addition, the enhanced lipogenesis and glycerol reutilization seen in their adipose tissue, disturbs the normal balance between fat depots breakdown and accumulation in favor of the latter.

[Serial ultrasonography of the endometrium and endocervix during the normal menstrual cycle in women]

Articles on ultrasound of the human endometrium are in the majority of the cases based on studies of patients who have infertility and are taking drugs to induce ovulation. Such investigations do not include histological study of the endometrium and have focused on the ovulatory period. There is controversy in the interpretation of the images. PURPOSE--To evaluate the sonographic appearance of the endometrium during the normal menstrual cycle. METHODS--We studied 15 multiparous women with normal cycles, and who were not under drugs for ovulation induction, had neither IUD, nor were having oral hormonal contraceptives. They were seen on the first, seventh, fourteenth, and twentieth-first days of the menstrual cycle. The sonographic aspects were compared with the histological findings. RESULTS--We could see the images of the endometrium on the first day of the cycle in 66.66% of the patients. On the other visits we could study properly its features very well in all the patients. The endometrial image thickness increased in a linear pattern and the hypoechogenic halo was seen in 93.33% of the patients on the twentieth-first day of the menstrual cycle. CONCLUSION--The cyclic changes of the endometrium were shown with the sonography. The cyclic changes of the endocervix were evaluated too with the sonogram although they are not as remarkable as the endometrial ones.