Abstract: A method for screening a substance for treating visceral adiposity syndrome comprises: (1) extracting a total RNA fraction from skeletal muscle collected from non-human mammals of a group to which a predetermined amount of the test substance has been administered and from non-human mammals of a group to which the test substance has not been administered; (2) quantifying the expression quantity of mRNA in the total RNA fraction extracted that encodes a glucose transporter gene by a specific method; and (3) comparing and analyzing the quantity of the test substance ingested, the body weight gain, and the expression quantity of RNA encoding the glucose transporter gene during the administration period for the non-human mammals of the test substance-administered group to these quantities for the non-human mammals that constitute the test substance-unadministered group to thereby determine the effect of the test substance on the metabolic syndrome.

Abstract: A computerized tomography system and method using penetrating radiation having a radiation source for radiating penetrating radiation into the interior of a thin sliced layer portion of a subject, in a manner that it expands substantially in a fanned fashion, a detector for substantially dividing the radiation after passing through said sliced layer portion into a plurality of radiation beams diverging at a defined angle, thereby detecting the intensity of said beams, a moving unit for substantially linearly scanning each of said beams at least once in a direction transverse of said sliced layer portion, a data processing unit for reconstructing an image of said sliced layer portion on the basis of detected data delivered from said detector, and a display unit for displaying said image on the basis of the results of said reconstruction.

Abstract: A computed tomograph system comprises a radiation source for emitting a fan-shaped beam of penetrating radiation of included angle .alpha., and a radiation detector comprising a plurality of radiation detection cells on which the fan-shaped beam falls. Between the radiation source and the radiation detector a subject to be examined is placed. The radiation source and radiation detector are mounted on a support frame. The support frame is movable along an axis defined between the radiation source and the subject and rotatable with the subject as a center. The support frame is moved by a shifting mechanism so as to be adjustable in accordance with the size of the area of the subject to be examined or the size of the region of interest, and rotated by a rotating mechanism. The radiation source has a variable diaphragm for permitting the included angle .alpha. of the fan-shaped beam to be varied according to the size of the area of the subject and a variable slit for varying the thickness of the fan-shaped beam.