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Metabolic features in disease-resistant as well as in spontaneously hypertensive rats and newly established obese Wistar Ottawa Karlsburg inbred rats

International Journal of Obesity volume 24, pages 1618–1622 (2000)Cite this article

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: Studies, comparing several disease-prone and disease-resistant rat strains to elucidate the extent and severity of syndromes resembling human diseases are lacking. Therefore we studied the inbred rat strains BB/OK, BN/Crl, LEW/K and WKY/Crl in comparison with SHR/Mol and WOKW/K rats as models of metabolic syndrome.

DESIGN: Body weight and body mass index (BMI) were measured in 12 males of each strain at 14 weeks. In addition blood glucose, serum triglycerides, cholesterol, insulin and leptin were determined at 12, 13 and 14 weeks of age.

RESULTS: In contrast to SHR animals, WOKW rats develop a severe metabolic syndrome including obesity, hyperleptinemia, hyperinsulinemia and dyslipidemia.

CONCLUSION: We conclude that; (i) the choice of disease-resistant inbred rat strains as ‘healthy controls’ for a disease-prone strain has to be carefully evaluated; (ii) in comparison with SHR, WOKW rats develop most if not all facets of the metabolic syndrome described in human and (iii) as with the human disease the syndrome in rats is polygenic.

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Acknowledgements

We wish to thank Marlies Baumann, Edeltraut Lübke and Kathrin Stabenow for expert technical assistance. This work was supported by grant no. K1 771/3-1 of Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.

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  1. Department of Laboratory Animal Science at the Institute of Pathophysiology, University of Greifswald, Karlsburg, D-17495, Germany

    J van den Brandt, P Kovács & I Klöting

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  1. J van den Brandt
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Correspondence to I Klöting.

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van den Brandt, J., Kovács, P. & Klöting, I. Metabolic features in disease-resistant as well as in spontaneously hypertensive rats and newly established obese Wistar Ottawa Karlsburg inbred rats. Int J Obes 24, 1618–1622 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ijo.0801444

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