Advisor(s)
Liou Sun
Committee Member(s)
Melissa Harris
Thane Wibbels
School
College of Arts and Sciences
Document Type
Thesis
Department (new version)
Biology
Date of Award
1-6-2025
Abstract
As society and human civilization advances, humans have begun to live longer and most people live to be longer than 60, which was not the case several decades ago. According to the World Health Organization(WHO), by the turn of the next decade at 2030, 1 in 6 people will be 60 years or older, accounting for almost 1.4 billion people. Aging affects people differently but in general, it has a propensity to induce widespread and progressive molecular and cellular damage which leads to a myriad of diseases and eventually death. The greatest risk factor for most of the chronic diseases and comorbidities that affect and utilities our resources, ranging all the way from Diabetes, Hypertension, Obesity, Cardiovascular Diseases, cancer to auto immune diseases, is: Aging. As such, it is of paramount importance to tackle the problem at its root cause instead of redressing the band-aid when the injury has already occurred. Uncovering and understanding the aging process by using animal models that mimic either disease states in humans or are purportedly long-lived will enable us with the wherewithal to better understand these diseases and mechanisms in the context of the aging process. Our current studies investigate the role of inducing a diabetic phenotype by administration of high fat diet in a rat model of Alzheimer’s Disease and the impacts of genetic modification of a Sprague Dawley rat model, whereby we knocked out Growth-Hormone Releasing Hormone(GHRH) on longevity. Preliminary findings indicate the sexually dimorphic manner in which high fat diet affects male and female rats and their microbiome and a recapitulation of some of the metabolic and physiological characteristics in the GHRH- KO mice model.
ProQuest ID
Recommended Citation
Phone Myint, Soe Maung Maung, "Metabolic And Physiological Characteristics Of Diet Manipulation And Genetic Modification In Two Rat Models Of Aging" (2025). All ETDs from UAB. 7311.
https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/etd-collection/7311
