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Updated: May 28, 2026

Body Composition and Metabolic Caging Analysis in High Fat Fed Mice
Published on: May 24, 2018
Increased production of active ghrelin is relevant to hyperphagia in nonobese spontaneously diabetic Torii rats
Hiroharu Mifune1, Yoshihiro Nishi, Yuji Tajiri
1Institute of Animal Experimentation, Kurume University School of Medicine, Kurume 830-0011, Japan.
Abstract:
An abnormal eating behavior is often associated with diabetes mellitus in individuals. In the present study, we investigated the mechanisms underlying the relationship among uncontrolled diabetes, food intake, and the production of ghrelin, an orexigenic hormone, in spontaneous diabetic Torii (SDT) rats. Male SDT rats and age-matched control Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were housed from 8 to 38 weeks of age. Body weight and daily food intake were measured weekly, whereas blood and whole stomach samples were obtained at the age of 8, 25, and 38 weeks in both SDT and SD rats. The SDT rats at both 25 and 38 weeks of age demonstrated significantly lower body weights despite almost doubled food consumption compared with the SD rats of the same age. The SDT rats showed overt hyperglycemia at 25 and 38 weeks of age with concomitant hypoinsulinemia. The plasma active ghrelin levels and the ratio to total ghrelin levels of SDT rats at 38 weeks of age were significantly higher than those of SD rats of the same age. Stomach ghrelin and ghrelin O-acyltransferase messenger RNA expression levels were higher in SDT rats than in SD rats after the induction of diabetes, with a concomitant decrease of stomach ghrelin-immunopositive cell numbers in SDT rats at 38 weeks of age. The SDT rats with uncontrolled hyperglycemia show hyperphagia with a concomitant increase of plasma active ghrelin concentration. This report is the first to clarify the relevance of ghrelin to hyperphagia in diabetic state over an extended period.
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