SOME CHANGES IN THE FUNCTIONAL AND MORPHOLOGICAL PARAMETERS AFTER VERY LOW CALORIE DIET AND REFEEDING

It was recently found that very low calorie diet (VLCD) and weight reduction have beneficial effect on insulin resistance. AIM: To check how insulin sensitivity changes after VLCD and refeeding. Method: Eighteen male NZW rabbits with similar initial body weight (BW) underwent different diets for 80 days: The VLCD group (n=6) received 30 g chow daily, the CONTR group (n=6) received 150 g chow daily, and the refeeded (REFD) group was treated as VLCD for 80 days and then received 60 g chow daily for a week. At the end of diet period intravenous glucose tolerance test was applied and all the animals were sacrificed under uretan narcosis. Bodies and livers were weighted and cryostat sections for histochemical glycogen determination were prepared from the liver tissue. Results: The serum glucose levels before and after glucose overload did not differ significantly but insulin increased significantly in REFD compared to VLCD (but not to CONTR) at 0, 3rd, 5th, and 60th minutes. Glycogen increases remarkably in hepatocytes of REFD compared to VLCD and seemed more like CONTR's than like VLCD's sections. Liver weight and BW of REFD differ significantly with CONTR's (but not with VLCD's). Discussions: Our results indicated that the hepatocytes fulfilling and the insulin levels change simultaneously without concordance with body and liver weight changes. We suppose that the insulin serum levels seem associated more with liver glycogen depot fulfilling than with body weight.