ABSTRACT
In human populations, most investigators have found that serum lipids increase with age. Food restriction started at 6 weeks of age did not influence serum cholesterol or phospholipid levels in young adults which shows that food restriction does not acutely affect the serum concentrations of these lipids. When it is further recognized that food restriction can greatly prevent the age-related loss in responsiveness to catecholamines, it seems reasonable to conclude that there is a nutrition-aging interaction that leads to the loss in the responsiveness of adipocytes to the fat-mobilizing action of catecholamines. Moreover, the response of the adipocytes to insulin, which increases glucose metabolism including fatty acid biosynthesis, is blunted with increasing age. However, the role that nutrition plays in these age-related changes in lipoprotein lipase activity and in triglyceride and cholesterol degradation remains to be explored.
