*2.2. Biometric, Blood Samples and Cardiac Left Ventricular Tissue Parameters Monitoring*

Body weight, heart and left ventricular weight of rats were registered at the end of the experiment. The systemic blood pressure (BP) was monitored via the cannulated carotid artery, as previously described [18], in WKY, SHR and SHRM males and females. Postprandial levels of triglycerides (TG), total cholesterol (TC) and high-density lipoproteins (HDL) were assessed using available kits (Pliva-Lachema Diagnostika, Brno, Czech Republic). Low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL) was estimated indirectly using the concentration relations: LDL = TC − (TG/5) − HDL. Concentrations of the total L-thyroxine (tT4) and 3,3 ,5-triiodo-L-thyronine (tT3) in blood sera of the rats were determined by radioimmunoassay (RIA) using commercial RIA kits with [125I]-T4 and [125I]-T3 tracers (Immunotech/Beckman Coulter Co., Prague, Czech Republic), as described previously [19]. The left ventricular thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) were determined as described previously [17], and the content of reduced glutathione (GSH) was assessed in the left ventricular tissue, as described previously [20].
