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Relationship of Serum Immunoreactive Somatomedin-C to Dietary Protein and Energy in Growing Rats¹

Department of Nutrition, School of Public Health and Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, NC 27514

Protein-energy undernutrition has its most devastating consequences during growth. Postnatal somatic growth now appears to be regulated in large part by the somatomedins, a family of growth hormone-dependent peptide mitogens. This study, using growing rats as the model, was designed to determine the relationship between protein and energy intake and serum immunoreactive somatomedin-C. Four-week-old male Sprague-Dawley rats were fed ad libitum three levels of isoenergetic protein diets (5%, 10%, and 15% lactalbumin) at each of three levels of energy (ad libitum, 75% or 50% of ad libitum quantities). Dietary fat was held constant at 11.9% as cottonseed oil. At 5 weeks of age, serum somatomedin-C concentration was predominately influenced by the dietary protein and increased linearly as protein intake increased from 5% to 15%. At 6, 9, and 12 weeks of age, serum somatomedin-C concentration was influenced by both protein and energy intake, although protein intake appeared to be the more important variable. Serum somatomedin-C was highly correlated with both body weight (r = 0.84, P < 0.001) and tail length (r = 0.74, P < 0.001). These results indicate that measurement of immunoreactive somatomedin-C provides a valuable biochemical index of protein-energy nutriture.

KEY WORDS: • Somatomedin-C • protein-energy nutriture • growth • nutritional status

¹ Supported by a grant from General Research Support of the School of Public Health, the University of North Carolina; USPHS-NIH research grants HDO8299, AM01022, and a grant from the National Foundation March of Dimes 5-188.

Manuscript received 5 June 1981.

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