Transgenic amplification of glucocorticoid action in adipose tissue causes high blood pressure in mice

Obesity is closely associated with the metabolic syndrome, a combination of disorders including insulin resistance, diabetes, dyslipidemia, and hypertension. A role for local glucocorticoid reamplification in obesity and the metabolic syndrome has been suggested. The enzyme 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1 (11β-HSD1) regenerates active cortisol from inactive 11-keto forms, and aP2-HSD1 mice with relative transgenic overexpression of this enzyme in fat cells develop visceral obesity with insulin resistance and dyslipidemia. Here we report that aP2-HSD1 mice also have high arterial blood pressure (BP). The mice have increased sensitivity to dietary salt and increased plasma levels of angiotensinogen, angiotensin II, and aldosterone. This hypertension is abolished by selective angiotensin II receptor AT-1 antagonist at a low dose that does not affect BP in non-Tg littermates. These findings suggest that activation of the circulating renin-angiotensin system (RAS) develops in aP2-HSD1 mice. The long-term hypertension is further reflected by an appreciable hypertrophy and hyperplasia of the distal tubule epithelium of the nephron, resembling salt-sensitive or angiotensin II–mediated hypertension. Taken together, our findings suggest that overexpression of 11β-HSD1 in fat is sufficient to cause salt-sensitive hypertension mediated by an activated RAS. The potential role of adipose 11β-HSD1 in mediating critical features of the metabolic syndrome extends beyond obesity and metabolic complications to include the most central cardiovascular feature of this disorder

Worrying Times: The fear of crime and nostalgia

As well as finding empirical relationships between victimisation, key socio-demographic variables, and various psychological and environmental processes, criminologists have long suspected that the feelings now identified, corralled together and labelled as ‘the fear of crime’ have roots in the wider shifts in the social, economic bases of society. In this paper, and using survey data from a nationally-representative sample of Britons aged over 16 (n = 5781), we explore the relationships between feelings of political and social nostalgia and the fear of crime. We find that nostalgia is indeed strongly related to crime fears, and, indeed, stronger even than variables such as victimisation, gender, and age (three of the frequently cited associates of fear). We go on to explore these relationships further in terms of different socio-economic classes, and relate feelings of nostalgia and fear to their recent (i.e. post-1945) historical trajectories.Economic and Social Research Council, as award ES/P002862/