Diet, Obesity and Stress

描述（由申请人提供）：肥胖是影响美国22%成年人的主要公共卫生问题。尽管公共卫生努力与肥胖作斗争，但随着与肥胖相关的医疗费用的增加，肥胖的发病率继续增加。肥胖增加了心血管疾病和非胰岛素依赖型糖尿病的易感性，并与抑郁和焦虑有关。慢性压力在肥胖的发展中起着重要作用，也与抑郁症和焦虑症有关。此外，肥胖个体的应激反应性下丘脑-垂体-肾上腺（HPA）轴的活动经常受到破坏。因此，文献支持压力、压力相关疾病和体重失调之间的紧密联系。为了确定慢性应激与肥胖之间相互作用的本质，本研究将使用高脂肪饮食诱导的肥胖（DIO）大鼠模型结合慢性可变应激（CVS）暴露来解决三个主要假设：(1)慢性应激增强高脂肪饮食大鼠的肥胖；(2)短期高脂饮食可增强慢性应激反应；(3)长期食用高脂饮食引起的肥胖会减弱慢性应激反应。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Obesity is a major public health problem affecting 22% of adults in the United States. Despite public health efforts to combat obesity, it continues to increase in incidence along with obesity-related health costs. Obesity increases susceptibility for cardiovascular disease and non-insulin dependent diabetes, and has been associated with depression and anxiety. Chronic stress plays a role in the development of obesity, and has also been linked with depression and anxiety disorders. Moreover, obese individuals often have disruptions in the activity of the stress-responsive hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Thus, the literature supports strong links between stress, stress-related illnesses and the dysregulation of body weight. To determine the nature of the interactions between chronic stress and obesity, this proposal will use a rat model of high fat diet-induced obesity (DIO) combined with chronic variable stress (CVS) exposure to address three principal hypotheses: (1) chronic stress potentiates obesity in rats consuming high fat diet; (2) chronic stress responses are potentiated by short term consumption of high fat diet; and (3) chronic stress responses are attenuated by obesity induced by long term consumption of high fat diet.