Nutritional regulation of adipose tissue blood flow in humans: dietary neural and structural determinants

脂肪储存在腹壁上和身体其他地方的皮肤下。血液流过这些脂肪沉积物。我们最近发现，血液流向脂肪沉积物可以在饭后增加很多。但有些人的血流量并没有增加。根据血液样本判断，这些人患心脏病的风险增加。这类似于对流经手臂大血管的血液的观察。如果你用止血带停止流经手臂的血液几分钟，通常血液会以更快的速度回流。众所周知，如果有人的手臂血流在这种情况下“反应迟钝”，那么这个人患心脏病的风险就会增加。在这个项目中，我们想知道是什么让脂肪中的血流量在饭后增加，为什么它在某些人身上没有这样做，以及我们是否可以通过改变某人的饮食来改变这种情况。我们认为神经系统可能会调节血液流动，我们将测试是否如此，以及血液流动对饮食没有反应的人有什么不同。然后我们可以看看更健康的饮食是否会改变神经系统的反应。我们还将使用注射器和针头从脂肪组织中取出少量样本，在显微镜下进行检查，以试图了解血液流动对膳食没有反应的人的脂肪沉积有什么不同。从长远来看，这项研究可能有助于解释为什么血管功能与心脏病风险有关，并可能帮助我们指导心脏病风险增加的人走向更健康的饮食。

Fat is stored on the wall of the abdomen and under the skin in other places on the body. Blood flows through these deposits of fat. We discovered recently that the flow of blood to the fat deposits can increase a lot just after a meal. But in some people the blood flow does not increase. These are people who are at increased risk of developing heart disease as judged from blood samples. This is similar to observations made on blood flowing through the big blood vessels in the arm. If you stop the blood flowing through the arm with a tourniquet for a few minutes, normally the blood then rushes back at an increased rate. It is already known that if someone's arm blood flow is 'unresponsive' when challenged in this way, then that person is at increased risk of developing heart disease. In this project we want to find out what makes the blood flow in fat increase after a meal, why it doesn't do that in some people, and whether we can alter that by changing someone's diet to a 'healthier' pattern. We think the nervous system probably regulates the blood flow and we will test whether that is so, and what is different in the people whose blood flow doesn't respond to meals. Then we can see if the nervous system responses are changed by a healthier diet. We will also use a syringe and needle to take little samples of the fatty tissue for examination under a microscope to try to understand what is different about the fat deposits in someone whose blood flow doesn't respond to meals. In the long term, this research may help explain why the functioning of blood vessels is related to risk of heart disease, and may help us to guide people with increased risk of heart disease towards healthier diets.