No insulating effect of obesity

TY - JOUR

T1 - No insulating effect of obesity

AU - Fischer, Alexander W

AU - Csikasz, Robert I

AU - von Essen, Gabriella

AU - Cannon, Barbara

AU - Nedergaard, Jan

N1 - Copyright © 2016 the American Physiological Society.

PY - 2016/7/1

Y1 - 2016/7/1

N2 - The development of obesity may be aggravated if obesity itself insulates against heat loss and thus diminishes the amount of food burnt for body temperature control. This would be particularly important under normal laboratory conditions where mice experience a chronic cold stress (at ≈20°C). We used Scholander plots (energy expenditure plotted against ambient temperature) to examine the insulation (thermal conductance) of mice, defined as the inverse of the slope of the Scholander curve at subthermoneutral temperatures. We verified the method by demonstrating that shaved mice possessed only half the insulation of nonshaved mice. We examined a series of obesity models [mice fed high-fat diets and kept at different temperatures, classical diet-induced obese mice, ob/ob mice, and obesity-prone (C57BL/6) vs. obesity-resistant (129S) mice]. We found that neither acclimation temperature nor any kind or degree of obesity affected the thermal insulation of the mice when analyzed at the whole mouse level or as energy expenditure per lean weight. Calculation per body weight erroneously implied increased insulation in obese mice. We conclude that, in contrast to what would be expected, obesity of any kind does not increase thermal insulation in mice, and therefore, it does not in itself aggravate the development of obesity. It may be discussed as to what degree of effect excess adipose tissue has on insulation in humans and especially whether significant metabolic effects are associated with insulation in humans.

AB - The development of obesity may be aggravated if obesity itself insulates against heat loss and thus diminishes the amount of food burnt for body temperature control. This would be particularly important under normal laboratory conditions where mice experience a chronic cold stress (at ≈20°C). We used Scholander plots (energy expenditure plotted against ambient temperature) to examine the insulation (thermal conductance) of mice, defined as the inverse of the slope of the Scholander curve at subthermoneutral temperatures. We verified the method by demonstrating that shaved mice possessed only half the insulation of nonshaved mice. We examined a series of obesity models [mice fed high-fat diets and kept at different temperatures, classical diet-induced obese mice, ob/ob mice, and obesity-prone (C57BL/6) vs. obesity-resistant (129S) mice]. We found that neither acclimation temperature nor any kind or degree of obesity affected the thermal insulation of the mice when analyzed at the whole mouse level or as energy expenditure per lean weight. Calculation per body weight erroneously implied increased insulation in obese mice. We conclude that, in contrast to what would be expected, obesity of any kind does not increase thermal insulation in mice, and therefore, it does not in itself aggravate the development of obesity. It may be discussed as to what degree of effect excess adipose tissue has on insulation in humans and especially whether significant metabolic effects are associated with insulation in humans.

KW - Journal Article

U2 - 10.1152/ajpendo.00093.2016

DO - 10.1152/ajpendo.00093.2016

M3 - SCORING: Journal article

C2 - 27189935

VL - 311

SP - E202-13

JO - AM J PHYSIOL-ENDOC M

JF - AM J PHYSIOL-ENDOC M

SN - 0193-1849

IS - 1

ER -