Cold exposure and acclimation in alloxan-diabetic rats

¹ Environmental Medicine Division, U. S. Army Medical Research Laboratory, Fort Knox, Kentucky

The survival rate of alloxan-diabetic rats at 5 C was significantly less than that of control rats living at the same low environmental temperature. One-half of the diabetic animals died within the first 7 days of exposure while the remainder exhibited a marked susceptibility to cold injury in the form of tail gangrene. Shivering was decreased upon re-exposure to cold in both the diabetic and control rats following 20 and 45 days of cold acclimation. The diabetic animals had a tendency to shiver less than their controls. Diabetic rats also showed a significantly greater decrease in rectal temperature over a 90-min period at 5 C than did controls, in spite of a similar increase in oxygen consumption. This rectal temperature decrease was observed in both the diabetic and control groups before and after 20 days of cold acclimation. The data suggest that a problem of heat conservation exists in the diabetic rat, but tail-skin temperatures, as recorded, did not bear this out.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				S. Hidaka, H. Yoshimatsu, T. Kakuma, H. Sakino, S. Kondou, R. Hanada, K. Oka, Y. Teshima, M. Kurokawa, and T. Sakata Tissue-Specific Expression of the Uncoupling Protein Family in Streptozotocin-Induced Diabetic Rats Experimental Biology and Medicine, July 1, 2000; 224(3): 172 - 177. [Abstract] [Full Text]