Could Hyperosmotic Stress on Cells Promote Obesity and Chronic Disease? A Multidisciplinary Look at the Effects of Hypertonicity

This symposium will focus on hypertonic dehydration, a specific fluid disorder characterized by cell dehydration due to the osmotic effects of plasma solute. Because adaptation to hypertonic cell dehydration favors a catabolic metabolic profile, DNA damage in certain tissues, and insulin resistance, hypertonic dehydration may promote obesity, related metabolic dysregulation and disease. The speakers will describe various effects of hypertonic dehydration at many levels, from inside the cell to whole organisms, to population-level data on free-living adults.

10:30 AM	Cellular adaptive responses to hypertonicity stress: Protein and DNA damage. Maurice Burg, NHLBI, NIH
10:55 AM	Integrative analysis of osmotic stress signaling networks in C. elegans. Todd Lamitina, Vanderbilt Univ.
11:20 AM	Comparative effects of different types of hyperosmolality on the central nervous system. Allen Arieff, UCSF
11:45 AM	Dehydration effects on exercise, metabolism, thermoregulation and cardiovascular aspects. Michael Sawka, USARIEM, Natick, MA
12:10 PM	Epidemiology of hypertonic dehydration: its prevalence and associations with obesity, diabetes, disability and mortality in human populations. Jodi Stookey, Stanford Prevention Res. Ctr.