Tsuneo Okutomi

Unusual concentration of urine and prevention of polydipsia by fungal prenylphenols in doca hypertensive rats

When deoxycorticosterone acetate (DOCA)-loaded uninephrectomized rats were fed on standard laboratory pellet diet and 1% saline for 5 weeks, caloric homeostasis became abnormal resulting in (a) hyperlipidemia, (b) cholesterol deposit in the heart, (c) significant reduction of triglycerides in the aorta, heart and liver and (d) a 60% increase in the cardiac free fatty acids (FFA) on one hand and a 50% reduction of the hepatic FFA on the other. These facts suggest that the hypertension severely reduces hepatic lipogenesis, whereas the cardiovascular system depends much more on FFA as a metabolic fuel than on glucose. This idea is supported by the deficiency in total body potassium (K) and decrease in serum immunoreactive insulin (IRI) which occur in the hypertension. These alterations were attenuated by the fungal prenylphenols, 4-0-methylascochlorin (MAC) and ascofuranone (AF). The protective effect seems to be partly attributable to the counteraction to DOCA. In addition, the agents caused a specific increase of renal water reabsorption. MAC treatment resulted in a particularly marked reduction of saline intake and excretion of unusually thick urine with 2.8 times higher sodium (Na) concentration than in the DOCA/saline control rats.