title: Effects of exercise and of food restriction on adipose tissue cellularity.
abstract: The body weight and fat content of young, growing rats were kept low by regularly performed endurance exercise by the rats or by restriction of their food intake over a period of 14 wk. The cellular character of epididymal fat pads was studied to determine if the reduction in fat was due to a decrease in the number of adipose cells, their size, or both. Compared with the sedentary freely eating control animals, both the exercisers and the sedentary paired-weight animals, which had their food intake restricted in order to maintain their body weights approximately the same as those of the exercisers, had significantly lighter epididymal fat pads (P < 0.001). This fat depot in the exercisers contained fewer (4.46 +/- 0.48 x 10(6) vs. 6.89 +/- 0.55 x 10(6) cells/pad; P < 0.001) and smaller (0.286 +/- 0.041 vs. 0.462 +/- 0.040 micro g of lipid/cell; P < 0.001) cells than that in the sedentary freely eating animals. Food restriction also resulted in a significant reduction in adipose tissue cellularity (P < 0.05). Epididymal fat pads from the calorie-restricted rats had an average of 5.72 +/- 0.33 x 10(6) cells and they contained 0.319 +/- 0.024 micro g of lipid/cell. These results demonstrate that exercise in addition to food restriction in early life is effective in reducing the rate of accumulation of cells in epididymal fat pads of rats.
mesh_terms: D000273:Adipose Tissue / Q000166:cytology*; D000818:Animals; D001835:Body Weight; D002455:Cell Division; D004032:Diet; D005223:Fats / Q000032:analysis; D005856:Germ-Free Life; D008297:Male; D005082:Physical Exertion; D051381:Rats; D011919:Rats, Inbred Strains
chemical_list: D005223:Fats