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Query: UMLS:C0028754 (obesity)
 124,988 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

The common obesity of middle age presents a set of features that strongly resembles the cardinal symptoms of Cushing's syndrome: obesity of the face (moon face), upper back (buffalo hump) and trunk (pot belly) accompanied by signs of protein-wasting. In non-obese individuals who remain at a constant weight throughout life, the proportion of adipose tissue increases with age at the expense of lean tissue loss. Thus, a mild version of Cushing's syndrome may be part of the normal aging process. A more intense version of this process may occur in overweight adults. Excess and chronic activity of two pituitary hormones may contribute to this adiposity. Both hormones are produced in the same pituitary cell by cleavage from a common large precursor known as pro-opiocortin. One hormone is adrenocorticotrophin (ACTH), which stimulates the release of the glucocorticoid hormones. These hormones promote the conversion of bodily proteins to glucose (gluconeogenesis). The other pituitary hormone is beta-endorphin, a stimulant of appetite that causes the release of insulin. This pancreatic hormone promotes the conversion of glucose and fatty acids to triglycerides (lipogenesis). Three different etiologies are suggested for the excessive and chronic action of these two pituitary hormones: tumors that increase the number of cells that synthesize pro-opiocortin; mutant strains that produce excessive amounts of ACTH and beta-endorphin such as the genetically obese mouse (ob/ob) and rat (fa/fa); and an age-determined shift in the type of cleavage enzymes present in the pro-opiocortin cell that favors ACTH and beta-endorphin production.
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PMID:The obesity of middle age: a common variety of Cushing's syndrome due to a chronic increase in adrenocorticotrophin (ACTH) and beta-endorphin activity. 22 74

Clinical experimental investigations were carried out of 96 patients with light, nutritional-metabolism forms of obesity under the conditions of a moderately high mountain (1870 m above the sea level). After a treatment course of 20--25 days including: reducing diet, physical loading and cool sun-air exposure, a significant decrease of a wide spectrum of lipid indices was found, namely: total lipids, triglycerides, total cholesterol, phospholipids and beta-lipoproteins. A significant correlation was established between cholesterol decrease and beta-lipoproteins with body weight reduction over 3 kg and the high initial values of the indices. With a single physical loading in the patients with obesity -- the elevation of NEFA does not considerably differ from that of the control group with neurasthenia. The glucose loading is admitted not to indice manifested lipogenesis with the physical loading and cool sun-air exposure.
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PMID:[Changes in the indices of fat metabolism in obesity during physical activity, on a reducing diet and during meterological influences]. 22 45

Obesity is very common in South Africal Black girls aged 18 - 20 years. Severely obese White women have greatly reduced values for serum high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol. In a series of Black girls studied in rural and urban areas, mean values for HDL cholesterol were not significantly different in the obese compared with the non-obese groups. There were also no significant differences between obese and non-obese groups in mean serum cholesterol, triglyceride, uric acid, and blood glucose at fasting and 1 hour after a glucose drink. The same finding prevailed regarding blood pressures. All values for blood components were biologically more favourable in Black than in White adolescent girls (reported values). Mean sugar intakes of the obese were not significantly lower. Evidently, the metabolic and other disabilities linked with obesity in young White women have no counterpart in obese Black adolescent girls.
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PMID:Serum high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, glucose tolerance and other variables in obese black adolescent girls. 23 47

Relationships between adiposity indices based on weight and skinfold measurements were examined in 75 women and 25 men, aged 63-96 years. For both men and women, relative weight, weight/height, and body mass index (weight/height2) were positively correlated (p less than 0.001) with the triceps and the subscapular skinfold thicknesses. Correlations with the suprailiac skinfold also were significant but of lesser magnitude. Weights of 42% of the subjects exceeded the ideal weight for height by 20% or more; triceps fatfolds of 18% were in the obesity range. One-third of the group was judged to be hypertensive. Relative weight was positively associated with systolic (p less than 0.05) and diastolic (p less than 0.01) blood pressures. Relative weight was correlated with fasting serum glucose of women (p less than 0.01), but unrelated to serum cholesterol concentrations. None of the anthropometric or clinical findings were associated with current level of dietary kilocalories.
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PMID:Nutritional status of the elderly: anthropometric and clinical findings. 29 54

A diabetes prevalence study in 1975 on an isolated urbanized Central Pacific island (Nauru) showed rates comparable to the American Pima Indians--the highest yet recorded in the world literature. This paper reports the results of a follow-up study and the high prevalence has been confirmed. In this survey of 417 people aged ten years and over, 9.8% were known diabetics. With a plasma glucose of 160 mg/100 ml or over at two hours after a 75 gram oral glucose load as the criterion of diagnosis, , diabetes was detected in a further 19.2%, making a total diabetic population of 29% in the population studied. The prevalence of diabetes was 44% in people aged 20 years and over. A further 7% had borderline diabetes on the basis of a two-hour plasma glucose of 140--159 mg/100 ml. Parity did not appear to be a causative factor in relation to the high diabetes prevalence. However, obesity is common in this community and is more marked than that seen in other Pacific or Caucasian communities. The high prevalence of diabetes in this population appears to be related to the inter-action of environmental factors, such as obesity, with a diabetic genotype. The results confirm the possible detrimental effects of westernization on native populations.
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PMID:The effect of westernization on native populations. Studies on a Micronesian community with a high diabetes prevalence. 30 51

Sixteen children with familial hypertriglyceridemia were studied to determine whether there were any distinctive insulintriglycerid-obesity relationships in pediatric familial hypertriglyceridemia. Eleven of 16 children had calculated fat mass greater than the 97th percentile for age, height, and sex. When compared with 16 normal control subjects matched for degree of obesity immunoreactive insulin and glucose response during oral glucose tolerance was similar for normal and hypertriglyceridemic children. By either simple correlation or multiple regression analysis, plasma, triglycerides did not correlate significantly with measurements of insulin or obesity in hypertriglyceridemic or normal children. Within the limits of a small sample size, and in the presence of obesity, insulin does not appear to play a predominant role in the genesis of hypertriglyceridemia in children with familial hypertriglyceridemia. With a small mean weight loss of 1.8 kg and adherence to a diet with 20% of calories as protein, 40% each as fat and carbohydrate, polyunsaturate to saturate ratio of 1.5:1, mean plasma triglycerides were reduced from 238 to 140 mg/100 ml in the 11 obese children with familial hypertriglyceridemia (P less than 0.02). Speculation In spite of the complicating role of obesity, adolescence, and the small sample size, it is interesting to note that the correlation coefficients between triglyceride and insulin/glucose area (0.36), and insulin area (0.30), although not significant (P less than 0.1), were considerably higher in hypertriglyceridemic children than in normal subjects in whom comparable correlation coefficients were 0.08 and 0.08. This infers that the potential role of insulin in triglyceride metabolism in children with familial hypertriglyceridemia might be discerned with longitudinal follow-up into adulthood.
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PMID:Insulin, obesity, and triglyceride interrelationships in sixteen children with familial hypertriglyceridemia. 31 42

Severly obese subjects and sex- and age-matched controls underwnet physical training during a 6-wk period. Evidence of training was shown in all subjects by increased aerobic power. Before training the obese subjects were characterized by the following abberations: decreased glucose tolerance, hyperinsulinemia, elevated blood glycerol and plasma free fatty acids, and a blunted plasma growth hormone response during glucose tolerance. Noradrenaline output was elevated, a finding of potential interest for the explanation of increased lipolysis, blood pressure, and heart size in obesity. With training the following changes were found:In the controls there was evidence for the beginning of a decrease of adipose tissue mass. In the obese, however, body weight, body fat, or fat cell size did not decrease during training. Plasma insulin decreased, and a corresponding increase of plasma glycerol was seen. Glucose tolerance was not changed, and this, together with decreased plasma insulin, indicated an increase insulin sensitivity of the periphery. Changes in noradrenaline or growth hormone during training could not explain this increased sensitivity. Urinary cortisol output was found to decrease after training in the obese; this might be interpreted as a decrease in cortisol secretion allowing a more effective insulin action on the periphery.
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PMID:Physical training in human hyperplastic obesity. IV. Effects on the hormonal status. 31 26

Parenteral administration of gold thioglucose to mice produces an area or necrosis in the ventromedial portion of the hypothalamus. The lesion, like lesions produced by electrocautery of this area, causes hyperphagia and consequent obesity. The glucose moiety of gold thioglucose is essential for production of the lesion. Glucose analogues (2-deoxy-glucose, sodium thioglucose and phlorizin) prevent the gold thioglucose-induced lesion, and by themselves produce a transient hyperphagia. Insulin deficiency prevents the lesion. Either adrenalectomy or hypophysectomy counteracts the effect of insulin deficiency. Electron microscopic studies, in which general necrosis is avoided by administration of aspirin before gold thioglucose or by administration of subnecrotic doses of gold thioglucose, reveal that gold thioglucose primarily affects neural elements contiguous with capillaries in the ventromedial hypothalamus. The experimental observations indicate the presence of special glucoreceptor cells in the ventromedial hypothalamus that are involved in the regulation of food intake.
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PMID:Gold thioglucose obesity syndrome. 32 50

The Zucker (fatty) rat is one of a group of animals that inherit obesity as an autosomal Mendelian recessive trait. These rats are obese, hyperphagic, and hyperinsulinemic, but blood glucose remains at normal levels. Although these rats eat more than normal rats, their response to the addition of adulterants to the food or after exposure to the cold is more like that of normal rats than rats with hypothalamic obesity. The hypertriglyceridemia which characterized these animals is due to the increased hepatic production of a very low density lipoproteins. Adipocytes are increased in size and in number with the subcutaneous fat depot showing the largest increase in the number of fat cells. Lipogenesis from glucose is brisk in the young animals but declines with age. Enzymatic patterns of glycolysis and gluconeogenesis appear to reflect the altered internal milieu rather than specific defects. Endocrine changes in the fatty rat include hyperinsulinemia, reduced levels of glucagon, hypothyroidis, and impaired reproductive function. A model is presented in which the features of the genetically obese (Zucker) fatty rat are compared with those of animals with hypothalamic obesity.
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PMID:The Zucker-fatty rat: a review. 32 51

Excessive food intake and obesity was induced in one member of parabiotic pairs by electrical stimulation (three 30-min sessions/day for 2 wk) of the lateral hypothalamus (LH). The nonstimulated partners reduced spontaneous food intake the fatter the stimulated animals became. This reduced food intake resulted in a decreased body weight, fat content, and fat-free solid body mass. The decrease of food intake was not due to changed social behavior of the obese partner. It must be attributed to transmission of a humoral satiety factor. The very first stimulation of the LH in the stimulated partners resulted in a large increase in blood glucose and glucagon level without much change in the insulin level. These changes in blood parameters were probably due to strong sympathetic arousal. In the nonstimulated animals there were practically no changes in these parameters. One week of fattening resulted in increased basal glucose and insulin levels in the stimulated animals and decreased glucose levels in the nonstimulated partners, in which the basal insulin levels remained nearly normal. Basal glucagon levels were the same in both partners and did not differ from the prefattening situation. At that time during stimulation the obese animals showed a large increase in glucose and glucagon levels and a decrease in insulin level. On the other hand the nonstimulated animals showed a slow gradual increase in glucose and insulin level due to transmission from their fat partners because of the large gradient in these substances between the animals. These phenomena were still more pronounced after 2 wk of fattening. It is tentatively concluded that the humoral satiety factor is neither circulating insulin nor glucagon nor one of the major circulating nutrients.
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PMID:Involvement of a humoral factor in regulation of body weight in parabiotic rats. 32 94


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