A. Sbarbati et al., Effect of dietary supplementation with zinc sulphate on the aging process:a study using high field intensity MRI and chemical shift imaging, BIOMED PHAR, 52(10), 1998, pp. 454-458
High field intensity magnetic resonance imaging (HF-MRI) has been applied t
o the in vivo study of age-related processes of organs located in the cervi
cal-thoracic region in mice and to describe the effects of oral zinc supple
mentation on these processes. Spin-echo (SE) pulse sequence and chemical sh
ift imaging (CSI) techniques have been used. Aging produced a progressive r
eduction of muscular masses and of thymic area, whereas the HF-MRI appearan
ces of spinal cord and of salivary glands were unchanged. In some aged anim
als, subcutaneous fat was reduced while visceral fat was well developed. In
the group of old animals supplemented with zinc sulphate, muscular masses
were more developed than that of the group of untreated old animals. Oral z
inc supplementation also produced an enlargement of the adipose tissue and
the thymic area showed an increase of about 65 % compared with thymic area
measured in the group of old animals used as controls. The present study co
nfirms previous data about the effects of Zn supplementation on aging proce
sses and demonstrates that HF-MRI is a powerful technique to study processe
s of aging, providing information about the effects of drug treatments on t
hese processes. (C) 1998 Elsevier, Paris.