Relationship between choline-deficient fatty liver and chronic alloxan diabetes in rats

¹ Department of Medicine B and Isotope Laboratory for Endocrine Research, Rothschild Hadassah University Hospital, Jerusalem, Israel

Choline deficiency in chronic alloxan-diabetic rats resulted in deterioration of the diabetic state. In alloxan-diabetic rats fed a choline-deficient diet the fatty infiltration of the liver was less than in nondiabetic rats on the same diet. Insulin administered to alloxan-diabetic and nondiabetic, choline-deficient rats further decreased the hepatic fat content and improved the diabetic state in the former. Administration of insulin during life caused a marked increase of fatty-acid synthesis in liver slices from both choline-fed and choline-deficient, alloxan-diabetic rats. Substituting fructose for starch in the choline-deficient diet failed to increase the hepatic fat of the diabetic or the nondiabetic animals. The decrease in hepatic fat following insulin administration to choline-deficient, alloxan-diabetic rats is apparently due to an extrahepatic effect of insulin, for it occurs in spite of the increased synthesis of fat in the liver induced by insulin.