Hepatocytes were prepared from rats fasted 2 days and refed a high carbohydrate diet for 1 day. These cells contained very high levels of glycogen (about half the defatted dry weight) and carried out high rates of lipogenesis (up to 800 micron at tritium incorporation from 3HOH/g (defatted dry weight)/h), even in the absence of added substrates. Pentose cycle flux was estimated by a method involving the use of [1-14C]galactose (Rognstad, R. (1976) Int. J. Biochem. 7, 221-228). In hepatocytes from normal fasted refed rats, the amount of NADPH produced by the pentose cycle was sufficient for about one-half to three-fourths of that required for fatty acid synthesis. 2,4-Dihydroxybutyrate, a malic enzyme inhibitor (Schimerlik, M.I. & Cleland, W.W. (1977) Biochemistry 16, 565-570) markedly depressed the randomization of 14C in lactate from [6-14C]hexoses, indicating an inhibition of the pyruvate cycle. 2,4-Dihydroxybutyrate (10 mM) had only a slight inhibitory effect on overall lipogenesis, but increased the rate of the pentose cycle by 40 to 90%.