The Effect of Lactose Feeding on the Body Fat of the Rat

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Abstract
Young rats fed diets containing lactose consumed less food, grew at a reduced rate, and had 40% less carcass fat than control rats fed diets containing glucose, sucrose, dextrin or a glucose-galactose mixture. Glucose-fed rats, pair-fed, or maintained by diet restriction at the same body weight as lactose-fed rats, had carcass fat contents as high as that of rats eating the glucose diet ad libitum. The ceca of the lactose-fed rats were enlarged, the contents were of acid reaction, and characterized by the predominance of Gram positive bacteria. Feeding other carbohydrates which are incompletely digested and absorbed, such as sorbitol, cellobiose, and raw patato starch also resulted in enlarged ceca and a low content of carcass fat indicating a correlation between these two factors. Supplementation of the lactose diet with nutritional factors, the administration of insulin of tolbutamide had no influence on fat deposition. The difference in body fat content of rats fed the glucose and lactose diets was still present after 42 weeks when the animals had reached a growth plateau.