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Blood Flow into Brown Fat of Rats Is Greater after a High Carbohydrate Than after a High Fat Test Meal¹

Zvi Glick, Steven J. Wickler^*, Judith S. Stern and Barbara A. Horwitz^*

Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism and Nutrition, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, CA 90509 ^* Department of Animal Physiology Department of Nutrition and the Food Intake Laboratory, University of California, Davis, CA 95616

Postprandial oxygen uptake of whole animals and rate of blood flow into the scapular and cervical brown adipose tissue (BAT) of Obsorne-Mendel male rats (200 g) were compared for those receiving a high carbohydrate meal or an equicaloric high fat meal. Blood flow was determined by the use of radiolabeled microspheres injected into the left ventricle of anesthetized animals, 2–3 hours after the test meal. In vivo oxygen uptake was elevated by about 10% (P < 0.05) and blood flow by more than 100% (P < 0.05) in the group receiving the high carbohydrate meal compared to the high fat meal. The rate of blood flow into tissues other than brown fat was not significantly altered by the composition of the test meal. These tissues included heart, gastrocnemius and soleus muscles, GI tract and white adipose tissue. Our data suggest that a high carbohydrate meal is more thermogenic than a high fat meal, and that the difference in the magnitude of the thermic effect produced by the two meals is paralleled by a corresponding difference in brown fat thermogenesis.

KEY WORDS: • brown fat • diet-induced thermogenesis • blood flow • thermic effect of meal • meal composition

¹ This research was supported in part by research grants from the U.S. Public Health Service and the National Institute of Arthritis, Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIH): AM27019 and AM18899 and from the University of California: D-816 and D-1556.

Manuscript received 12 March 1984.