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Effect of Cafeteria Feeding on Brown and White Adipose Tissue Cellularity, Thermogenesis, and Body Composition in Rats^1,2,

Orien L. Tulp^3,*, Ruth Frink and Elliot Danforth, Jr.^*

^* Metabolic Unit, Department of Medicine, Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, University of Vermont College of Medicine, Burlington, VT 05405

To determine the effects of cafeteria feeding on brown (BAT) and white (WAT) adipose tissue cellularity, thermogenesis and body composition, male Sprague-Dawley rats were fed a cafeteria or a Purina chow diet for 52 days postweaning. Interscapular BAT (IBAT) was removed from subgroups of rats on each diet, and the animals continued on the same regimens. The IBAT weight of rats fed cafeteria diets was 160% of controls after 3 days and 220% after 52 days of the dietary regimens, and brown adipocyte numbers were 130 and 300% those of stock diet-fed rats, respectively, during the same period. Brown adipocyte diameters were initially greater in rats fed cafeteria diet than in rats fed stock diet but were similar after 52 days. Norepinephrine-stimulated thermogenesis was greater in rats fed cafeteria diets than in rats fed stock diet and was intermediate between the two in the IBAT-lipectomized group fed cafeteria diet. Surgical reduction of IBAT resulted in hypertrophy of WAT and an improved efficiency of weight gain, whereas body composition, WAT cellularity, and the efficiency of weight gain of similarly operated rats fed stock diet were unaltered from those of unoperated animals fed stock diet. These results are consistent with the development of a nutritionally induced hyperplasia and/or differentiation of BAT similar to that which follows cold acclimatization. BAT may play an active role in the expenditure of excess energy during periods of overnutrition, and thereby influence an animal's propensity for fatness.

KEY WORDS: • brown adipose tissue • adipocyte size and number • overnutrition • body composition • thermogenesis • thyroid hormones

¹ Supported by U.S. Department of Agriculture 0410-9-0289. Biomedical Research Support Grant Program-Public Health Service 5429-19-10, and National Institutes of Health AM 18535.

² Partial preliminary reports presented at meetings of the third International Congress on Obesity, satellite symposium, Cothenburg, Sweden, October 3, 1980; Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, Atlanta, CA, April 14, 1981 (Fed. Proc. 40:871, 1981); and the American Society for Clinical Nutrition. San Francisco, CA, April 24, 1981 (Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 34:619, 1981).

³ Present address: Department of Chemistry, Colby College, Waterville, ME 04901.

Manuscript received 5 April 1982.