THE PITUITARY BODY 



may appear to diminish progressively, the serum of such 

 animals is reported not to antagonize the hormone's effects 

 in fresh animals (particularly see Young, 1937). 



THE METABOLISM OF LIPOIDS IN RELATION TO 



28 



THE PITUITARY BODY 



According to Lee and Ayres (1936), hypophysectomized 

 rats lose less "fat," i.e., substances extracted by ether, than 

 normal rats when both groups are fed identical amounts of 

 the same diet. The results of Reiss, Epstein, and Gothe 

 (1937) were variable. A few weeks after hypophysectomy 

 the total fat of the body appeared to have fallen to about 

 40 per cent of the normal value, to which it returned several 

 weeks later (8 weeks after operation). On the basis of other 

 experiments the authors suggest that adrenal cortical stimu- 

 lating hormone is of great importance in facilitating the dep- 

 osition of fat and that this action ultimately depends upon 

 the liberation of adrenal cortical hormone. The administra- 

 tion to man or the dog either of adrenal cortical extract or of 

 pituitary extract causing cortical stimulation was followed 

 by a fall of 25 per cent or less in the concentration of fat in 

 the blood because, according to the authors' interpretation, 

 more fat is deposited in the tissues. In the dog, Chaikoff 

 and his colleagues (1936) found that long after hypophysec- 

 tomy all the lipoids^^ of the blood may be present in normal 

 concentrations; in about one-third of the animals, however, 

 the lipoids of the blood were present in higher concentrations 

 than were ever encountered in normal animals. 



A number of reports are concerned with the behavior of 

 the fat of the liver in relation to the anterior pituitary. In 

 the terminology of Benoit (1937) the "hepatotropic func- 

 tion" of the pituitary is increased in the duck after thyroid- 



^* Oestreicher (1936) reported that the oxygen-consumption of isolated fatty 

 tissue of the rat (white subcutaneous fat or testicular fat body) is increased by the 

 addition of "thyrotropic hormone" or "fat-metabolism hormone." 



^' Total fatty acids, phosphatide, and free and ester cholesterol. 



1228 1 



