Journal of Nutrition

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Journal of Nutrition Vol. 74 No. 3 July 1961, pp. 243-248
Copyright © 1961 by American Society for Nutrition
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Some Relationships between Caloric Restriction and Body Weight in the Rat

I. Body Composition, Liver Lipids and Organ Weights1

Melvin Lee and S. P. Lucia

Department of Preventive Medicine, University of California School of Medicine, San Francisco, California

It has been confirmed that weight maintainance of rats by means of caloric restriction is accompanied by a gradual decline in caloric requirements. This caloric-restriction-adaptation was retained even after a period of severe caloric restriction accompanied by weight loss. Body composition, measured as the proportion of fat in the body, and protein in the fat-free body were the same following caloric restriction as in the zero-time control and ad libitum control animals. Some slight but significant changes were noted in body water. Liver total lipid, total cholesterol, and phospholipid levels were unaffected by caloric restriction. Although there were some significant changes in liver weight during caloric restriction, they did not follow any apparent pattern. Kidney and heart weights (as percentage of body weight) remained unchanged throughout the study. The constancy of body composition suggests that the caloric-restriction-adaptation operates through some compensatory mechanism such as alterations in total activity or through metabolic pathways which influence the efficiency of energy yields from the diet.

1 Supported in part by research grant A-3872 from the National Institutes of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health, Education and Welfare, a grant from the University of California School of Medicine, and a donation by Mr. and Mrs. Winston S. Cowgill, in memory of Charles A. Christenson.

Manuscript received 20 February 1961.




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