Cuscuta australis (C. australis) seed and stem are historically used by the local population as dietary supplement for the management of infertility. This study, therefore, evaluated the effect of orally administered aqueous extracts of C. australis seed and stem, 300 mg/kg body weight/day for seven days, on the testis of the adult Wistar rat fed either low or normal protein-energy diets. The c...

background: although it is assumed that calcium has beneficial effects on weight loss, the interaction of calcium and iron would be a major concern. we did this study to investigate the effects of calcium and low-fat milk on serum ferritin in overweight or obese premenopausal women.   methods: sixty-four healthy overweight or obese premenopausal women recruited in shahid beheshti university of ...

The prevalence of obesity in industrialized countries is increasing in spite of decreased energy and fat intakes. This trend might be mainly a consequence of a decline in energy expenditure. It is suggested here that it might also be accounted for by the increasing proportion of protein in the diet, affecting the hormonal status. The nutrient imbalance is particularly apparent in early childhoo...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Daily nutrient intake and growth of male Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats fed compositionally different diets were monitored over 114 weeks to determine whether rats fed ad libitum (AL) or diet restricted (DR) followed normal growth parameters. A second objective was to evaluate the usefulness of the American Institutes of Nutrition's AIN-93M (maintenance formulation) diet for aging...

To investigate whether dietary fat source and energy restriction interactively influence plasma leptin levels and its association of leptin with insulin action, rats were fed diets containing either fish, safflower oil, or beef tallow (20% wt/wt) for 10 weeks. Groups of rats consumed each diet ad libitum or at 85% or 70% of ad libitum energy intake in a design that held fat intake constant. Gra...

background and objective: obesity is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. the abnormalities involved may be mediated by increased secretions of inflammatory proteins called adipocytokines by the adipose tissue. thus, monitoring adipocytokines during weight loss could be helpful in progress evaluation of weight reduction programs. since high-protein diets are cons...

Serum lipoprotein[a] (Lp[a]) is a strong risk factor for coronary heart disease. We therefore examined the effect of dietary fatty acid composition on serum Lp[a] levels in three strictly controlled experiments with healthy normocholesterolemic men and women. In Expt. I, 58 subjects consumed a control diet high in saturated fatty acids for 17 days. For the next 36 days, 6.5% of total energy int...

Satiety-signaling, pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC)-expressing neurons in the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus play a pivotal role in the regulation of energy homeostasis. Recent studies reported altered mitochondrial dynamics and decreased mitochondria- endoplasmic reticulum contacts in POMC neurons during diet-induced obesity. Since mitochondria play a crucial role in Ca2+ signaling, we investi...