This study investigates the effects of intermittent overnight fasting in streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats (STZ rats). Over 30 days, groups of 5-6 control or STZ rats were allowed free food access, starved overnight, or exposed to a restricted food supply comparable to that ingested by the intermittently fasting animals. Intermittent fasting improved glucose tolerance, increased plasma insulin, and lowered Homeostatis Model Assessment index. Caloric restriction failed to cause such beneficial effects. The β-cell mass, as well as individual β-cell and islet area, was higher in intermittently fasting than in nonfasting STZ rats, whilst the percentage of apoptotic β-cells appeared lower in the former than latter STZ rats. In the calorie-restricted STZ rats, comparable findings were restricted to individual islet area and percentage of apoptotic cells. Hence, it is proposed that intermittent fasting could represent a possible approach to prevent or minimize disturbances of glucose homeostasis in human subjects.

Cell-based therapies offer promise for patients with Parkinson's disease (PD); however, durable and effective transplantation substrates need to be defined. This study characterized the feasibility and growth properties of primary cultures established from small-volume brain biopsies taken during deep brain stimulation (DBS) surgery in patients with PD. The lineage and expression of neurotrophic factors with known beneficial actions in PD-affected brain circuitry were also evaluated. Nineteen patients with PD undergoing DBS surgery consented to brain biopsies prior to electrode implantation. Cultures from these samples exhibited exponential and plateau phases of growth and were readily expanded throughout multiple passages. There was robust expression of progenitor markers and the unexpected colocalization of neural and mesenchymal proteins. The oligodendrocyte transcription factor, Olig1, and the myelin-specific sphingolipid, galactocerebroside, were coexpressed with each of glial-derived neurotrophic factor, brain-derived neurotrophic factor, and cerebral dopamine neurotrophic factor. Fluorescence-activated cell sorting demonstrated homogeneous expression of both nestin and Olig1 throughout the expanded cultures. Cells remained viable after a year in cryostorage. These findings confirm the feasibility of small brain biopsies as an expandable source of autologous cell substrate in living patients and demonstrate the complex phenotype of these cells, with implications for therapeutic application in PD and other neurological diseases.

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Abstract. The present report concerns several post-mortem variables examined in sand rats that were either maintained on a vegetal diet (control animals) or exposed first during a 20-day transition period to a mixed diet consisting of a fixed amount of a hypercaloric food and decreasing amounts of the vegetal food and then to a 30-day experimental period of exposure to the hypercaloric food. During the latter period, all animals were either given free access to food or fasting daily for 15 h, i.e. from 5.00 p.m. to 8.00 a.m. The body weight, liver wet weight, pancreas wet weight, plasma glucose and haemoglobin A1c concentration, plasma insulin concentration, insulinogenic index, insulin resistance HOMA, plasma cholesterol and triglyceride concentration, liver triglyceride and phospholipid content were all measured. Pancreatic islet (insulin, GLUT2) and liver (lipid droplets) histology were also examined. The main findings consisted in a lower body weight of fasting than non-fasting animals, a higher liver weight in non-diabetic and diabetic rats than in control non-fasting (but not so in fasting) animals, a decrease of pancreas weight in non-diabetic and diabetic as distinct from control animals, a fasting-induced decrease in plasma glucose, plasma insulin and insulin resistance HOMA, plasma cholesterol and triglyceride concentration and triglyceride liver content.