THE LIVER IN OBESITY

Abstract

EXPERIMENTAL obesity produced by hypothalamic injury in various species of animals is uniformly accompanied with liver damage, progressing occasionally to cirrhosis.¹In hereditarily obese strains of mice, liver damage is also seen uniformly, and even tumors of the liver are observed.²Although the increased incidence in human obesity of gall-bladder disease³and diabetes mellitus⁴has long been known, and although these conditions may lead independently to liver disease, there does not appear to be in the literature a consideration of the existence of liver damage in obesity per se. The majority of obese persons show a significant decrease in carbohydrate tolerance,⁵and this impairment has been related to the duration rather than to the degree of obesity.⁶Similar decreases in carbohydrate tolerance are observed in the experimental obesity of hypothalamic injury¹and in hereditarily obese mice.⁷Newburgh and Conn⁸suggested that the disturbed carbohydrate metabolism occurring with obesity is related