EFFECT OF CASEIN AND A CORRESPONDING AMINO ACID MIXTURE ON RAT REPLETION AFTER PROTEIN DEPLETION

Abstract

The nutritional effect of a diet containing amino acid mixture simulating casein was compared with that of casein diet using the rat repletion method. The repletion of rats fed amino acid diet ad libitum was lower than that with a casein diet whether rats were depleted by the 7-day fasting or by the 20-day feeding of nonprotein diet. The use of spacepair-feeding in the repletion tests resulted in approximately similar re-pletion responses to both the diets. These results confirm that the in-ferior repletion response to amino acid diet under ad libitum feeding conditions may be due to the lower food intake when compared to the response to the casein diet.