Estradiol interacts with gastric or postgastric food stimuli to decrease sucrose ingestion in ovariectomized rats

The sham feeding preparation was used to determine whether systemic estradiol administration inhibits the intake of 0.8 M sucrose of ovariectomized rats by decreasing the potency of pregastric controls of ingestion. During real feeding, significant reductions in the sucrose intake of estradiol-treated rats appeared within 5-6 min. In contrast, estradiol had no effect on sham feeding at any time. The lack of effect of estradiol on sham feeding indicates that pregastric stimuli are not sufficient to mediate the inhibitory effect of estradiol on feeding in ovariectomized rats. Rather, because estradiol did inhibit real feeding, gastric and/or postgastric food stimuli are necessary for this inhibitory effect. The rapid onset of estradiol's inhibitory effect on real feeding suggests that these postingestive stimuli are selective for controls of the initial phase of the meal.