The effects of differential psychological stress and infantile handling on plasma triglyceride and aortic cholesterol levels in rats.

The effects of differential psychological stress on serum triglyceride and aortic cholesterol levels were investigated in two experiments. In the first, rats with an unknown infant handling history purchased as adults from a standard supplier were subjected to predictable, controllable shocks; unpredictable, uncontrollable shocks; or the apparatus or their home cages with no shocks, for 30 days. All were maintained on a cholesterol-supplemented diet except during the daily 51-min stress sessions. The amounts eaten were equated among the groups. The results that the shocked rats had significantly lower terminal levels of serum triglycerides, and those receiving unpredictable, uncontrollable shocks had significantly less aortic cholesterol, than the nonshocked groups, which did not differ from each other in either measure. In the second experiment, rats born in this laboratory were either handled or left undisturbed in infancy and were exposed to a diet and differential stress conditions as adults. Animals handled in infancy had significantly lower aortic cholesterol than nonhandled animals across all stress conditions. In addition, those exposed to unpredictable, uncontrollable shocks had lower aortic cholesterol than those exposed to predictable, controllable shocks, and both had lower aortic cholesterol than the nonshocked group. Similar differential stress effects across stress conditions were seen in all the rats' serum triglyceride levels in Experiment 2. The effects of infantile handling did not interact with the stress effects, and neither could be accounted for by group differences in amount of the diet eaten or weight gained.