Psammomys obesus (the Israeli sand rat) has beenwell studied as an animal model of Type 2 diabetes.However, obesity phenotypes in these animals havenot been fully characterized. We analyzed phenotypicdata including body weight, percentage bodyfat, blood glucose and plasma insulin concentrationfor over 600 animals from the Psammomys obesuscolony at Deakin University to investigate therelationships between body fat, body weight andType 2 diabetes using regression analysis andgeneral linear modelling. The body weight distributionin Psammomys obesus approximates a normaldistribution and closely resembles that observed inhuman populations. Animals above the 75th percentilefor body weight had increased body fatcontent and a greater risk of developing diabetes.Increased visceral fat content .was also associatedwith elevated blood glucose and plasma insulinconcentrations in these animals. A familial effectwas also demonstrated in Psammomys obesus, andaccounted for 51% of the variation in body weight,and 23–26% of the variation in blood glucose andplasma insulin concentrations in these animals.Psammomys obesus represents an excellent animalmodel of.obesity and Type 2 diabetes that exhibits aphenotypic pattern closely resembling that observedin human population studies. The obesity describedin these animals was familial in nature and wassignificantly associated with Type 2 diabetes.
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