THE INTERACTION OF DIET AND STRESS IN RATS - HIGH-ENERGY FOOD AND SUCROSE TREATMENT

Exposure to inescapable shock typically reduces eating and body weight in rats. The present study examined the modulation of stress effects by prestress diet and poststress sugar availability. Maintenance on a high-fat, high-energy food attenuated stress-induced weight loss and a norexia and increased high-energy food selection when a low-energy wet mash was the only alternative. Access to sugar after stress also redu ced short-term weight loss; among rats maintained on high-energy food, body weight was spared absolutely. The dependence of stress effects o n pre-and poststress diet alternatives may speak to individual differe nces in the stress-eating relationship in humans. More generally, thes e results support a conceptualization of stress in terms of metabolic challenge and the integrated reorganization of energy regulatory proce sses.