We explored the effect of diet on activity and sleep behavior in male mice by using a diet switch feeding paradigm. We collected data pertaining to spontaneous activity patterns, blood metabolites, and large-scale gene expression analysis using RNA-sequencing. Multivariate linear regression models were used to analyze the data. The results indicated that spontaneous activity patterns were negatively associated with body weight but not related to diet/energy balance. However, body weight and diet/energy balance were associated with circulating glucose and insulin levels, but only body weight predicted plasma leptin levels. In the ventral hypothalamus, only two genes were identified as responding to diet/energy balance (i.e., npy nad agrp), while a small number of other genes responded to body weight. Another study examined the molecular consequences in the retina after exposing male F344/N rats to Kava Kava extract. The 90-day study exposed rats to Kava Kava extract by gavage at 0 and 1.0g/kg doses. Using gene expression microarray analysis, we found that transcriptional alterations related to retinal epithelial homeostasis and melatoninergic signaling. The study also found that Kava Kava extract exposure at 1.0 g/kg reduced the number of phagosomes in the retinal pigment epithelium of the superior retina.
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