Arginine-fed rats gained 40-70% less weight

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Friday, February 27, 2009 2:33 pm Email this article
Growing rats fed arginine gained 40-70% less weight according to a new study from the Feb 2009 issue of the Journal of Nutrition.

Here is the fifth video highlight from this paper.

In this video, I compare the weight gain in each group.

Briefly, here is how the study was done.

Rats that were about 5 months old were put on either a low-fat diet (10% of calories as fat) or a high fat diet (40% of calories as fat) and given either arginine or alanine (another amino acid to provide the same amount of nitrogen) in their drinking water for 3 months.

After 3 months, they compared body weight, body fat, and muscle.

For rats fed a low-fat diet—10% of calories as fat—, those given arginine, only gained one-third as much weight as those in the control group.

To put it another way, rats in the control group fed a low-fat diet gained 3 times as much weight as those given arginine.

For rats fed a low-fat diet—40% of calories as fat—, those given arginine, only gained two-thirds as much weight as those in the control group, or about one-third less.

To be more exact, about 40% less.

To put this another way, rats in the control group on a high-fat diet gained two-thirds (67%) more than those given arginine.

It is also interesting to compare the control rats in the low-fat group to the arginine-fed rats in the high-fat group.

Rats in the high-fat group given arginine even gained less weight—about one-sixth less weight—than the control rats in the low-fat group.

This is the fifth video highlight from this paper.

I will post more video highlights from this paper.

REFERENCE

Jobgen W, Meininger C, Jobgen S, Li P, Lee MJ, Smith S, Spencer T, Fried S, Wu G. Dietary l-arginine supplementation reduces white fat gain and enhances skeletal muscle and brown fat masses in diet-induced obese rats. J Nutr. 2009 Feb, 139(2):230-37.

AUTHOR’S CONTACT INFORMATION

Guoyao Wu
Department of Animal Science
Faculty of Nutrition
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX 77843, USA
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

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