A B S T R A C T Age-related decreases of hormonesensitive adenylate cyclase activities of rat fat cell plasma membranes (ghosts) have been recently described. Glucagon-sensitive activity was completely lost between 1 and 6 mo, an interval in which fat cell size increases rapidly, while decreased activation by ACTH was gradual over the entire life span of the animal (24 mo), and epinephrine-sensitive enzyme diminished modestly and only during senescence. In the present studies an attempt was made by restricting food intake to assess the importance of changing cell size in the age-related alterations of hormonesensitive enzyme activities. Enzyme activities were determined before restriction and at monthly intervals for 3 mo for the unstimulated enzyme (basal) though declining, were still 1.5-3 times greater than the unrestricted controls, regardless of whether activity was expressed as total activity per milligram ghost protein or per cell, or as fold-increase. In the young animals, basal and fluoride-sensitive activities after a 3-mo restriction were unchanged or had decreased only slightly, depending on the base line used. Dietary restriction of adult animals for 3 mo, in contrast to the results in the young, did not increase total hormone-stimulated activity but rather produced either 0% (per milligram protein) or 25% decrease (per cell) for epinephrine-sensitive enzyme, 25 or 50% decrease of ACTH response, and 40 or 60% decreases of basal-and fluoride-stimulated activities. Expression of activities of restricted adults as fold-increase (stimulate/basal) showed an "increase of responsiveness" for all three hormones, but this was a reflection of the marked decrease of basal activity. Nonetheless, the restricted adults showed significant restoration of a small amount of glucagon-sensitive activity (1.8-fold over basal). These results indicate that cell size, per se, is not a dominant factor affecting hormoneresponsive adenylate cyclase under conditions of dietary restriction. The data do not support the postulation that increasing cell size is directly related to the enzyme's decreased activity during aging. Hormonesensitive adenylate cyclase is, however, clearly under dietary control, while age determines the pattern of the observed response during dietary restriction.