Studies on the growth and changes in metabolism of rats fed on carbohydrate-deficient fatty acid based diets supplemented with graded levels of maize starch

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Abstract
1. Experiments were conducted to determine the effects of the supplementation of carbohydrate-deficient fatty acid-based (FA) diets with 18·7, 37·5, 75, 150 and 300 g maize starch (MS)/kg on the growth and metabolism of the growing rat. Further, the effects of fasting on rats given the FA diet were compared with those given the high-carbohydrate (CHO) diet. Due to the significant decrease in food consumption of rats given the FA diet, the effects of pair-feeding the CHO and the FA diet were also investigated.2. The isoenergetic replacement of fatty acids with increasing amounts of MS in the FA diet given to rats increased their weight gain and concentration of glucose in their plasma. These increases, however, tended to level off for weight gain and glucose concentration, respectively, at about 18·7 g and 75 g MS/kg diet. The same type of replacement decreased the concentration of ketones in the plasma but the decrease levelled off at the high concentration of 300 g MS/kg diet. Activities of liver glucose-6-phosphatase (EC3.1.3.9) and glucokinase (EC2.7.1.2) decreased and increased respectively with increasing concentration of maize starch in the diet. These changes tended to level off at concentrations of about 75–150 g MS/kg diet.3. Fasting for 18 h decreased the concentration of glucose in plasma of both the FA- and the CHO-fed rats, while fasting of the CHO-fed rats depressed the concentration of glycogen in the liver but did not influence that of the FA-fed rats. Pair-feeding the CHO diet to the FA diet produced similar weight increases during the 8-week experimental period.