Adrenalectomy in the male and female obese-hyperglycemic mouse at 2 months of age significantly lowers blood glucose and body weight. In the ob/ob mouse the response to fasting is appropriate, glucose tolerance is improved, and insulin resistance is significantly reduced after adrenalectomy.{Endocrinology 93: 510, 1973)

T^/TANY laboratories have suggested that the•"•'• adrenal plays a role in both the pancreatic islet cell hypertrophy and adiposity seen in some obese hyperglycemic syndromes of laboratory rodents (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). Indeed, hyperadrenalcortism is one of the major methods used to produce experimental obesities (6, 7, 8, 9, 10). In NH, ob/ob, Aya obese mice, adiposity is associated with some form of adrenal hypertrophy (S). It is of interest that adrenalectomy, before the onset of obesity, prevents both excess weight gain and islet hypertrophy in NH and yellow obese mice (1, 3). Intraocular transplantation of adrenals from lean mice maintains excess weight gain in adrenalectomized NH mice (5). Adrenalectomized ob/ob mice gain less weight than controls (11). In the ob/ob mouse the blood glucose is reduced after adrenalectomy, and it is reported (5) that blood sugar levels correlate with adrenal hypertrophy in these mice. In an investigation of the role of the adrenal cortex in the etiology of the obese-hyperglycemic syndrome in ob/ob mice, Hellerstrom et at.(12) found that all zones of the adrenal cortex were markedly hypertrophied in the obese, but not in the lean animals. They also found that the adrenal hypertrophy was directly related to the adiposity, ie, if the body weight of obese mice was kept within normal ranges by restricted