Deferred feeding and body weight responses to short-term interruption of fuel acquisition: impact of estradiol.

Short-term abstinence from food intake, planned or unplanned, is unavoidable in modern life, but negatively correlated with appetite control and obesity. This study investigated the role of estradiol in feeding and body weight (BW) reactions to short-span cessation of feeding. During acute 1-6-h re-feeding, 12-h food-deprived (FD), estradiol benzoate (EB)-implanted ovariectomized rats ate less food and gained less weight than FD animals implanted with oil (O). Full fed (FF)- and FD-EB consumed equal amounts of food over 24 h, but weight gain was greater in the latter; 24-h food intake and BW gain in FD-O exceeded FD-EB. Caudal fourth ventricular administration of the AMPK activator AICAR increased dorsal vagal complex AMPK activity in FD-EB and FD-O, but elicited dissimilar adjustments in hypothalamic metabolic neuropeptide transmitter expression, while respectively enhancing or reducing acute re-feeding in these animals and reversing FD-O weight gain. Drug-treated FD-EB and FD-O exhibited respective feeding and weight gain increases between 6-24 h. AICAR enhanced 24-h consumption in FD-EB vs. FF-EB, but cumulative intake and BW gain were greater in AICAR-treated FD-O vs. FD-EB. Results show that estradiol limits acute re-feeding after short-term feeding suspension, but augments acute re-feeding when energy depletion coincides with suspended feeding. This compound metabolic stress exerts steroid-dependent effects during later resumption of circadian-induced feeding, for example, increased consumption vs. weight gain in the presence vs. absence of estradiol. These studies provide novel evidence that estrogen mitigates acute and post-acute adverse effects of disrupted fuel acquisition on energy balance.