Reproduction and organ weight responses in female rats fed a restricted balanced diet or a restricted nonprotein calorie diet with or without supplemental glutamine or cysteine.

Primiparous Sprague-Dawley rats were used in two experiments to test the hypothesis that restriction of carbohydrate and fat calories alone versus comparable restriction of a balanced diet through gestation produces differential effects on gastrointestinal tract, reproductive tract and conceptus development. Rats were assigned on d 1 of pregnancy (13 rats/diet) to the following diets in Expt. 1: (1) balanced control diet fed ad libitum, C; (2) control diet fed at 50% of ad libitum intake, R; (3) restricted nonprotein energy diet containing twice the concentrations of protein, vitamins and mineral elements as the balanced control diet but fed at 50% of ad libitum intake of control diet, RCal; (4) R diet modified plus 0.21% L-cysteine, R + Cys; (5) R diet modified plus 1.54% L-glutamine, R + Glu. In Expt. 2, the treatment groups were: (1) Control diet, C; (2) C diet fed at 50% of ad libitum, R; (3) RCal diet fed at 50% of ad libitum intake of C; (4) RCal diet plus 2% L-glutamine fed at 50% of ad libitum intake of C. All pregnant rats were euthanized on d 20 postcoitum. Body weight of control dams was greater (P less than .01) than that of other dams in both experiments. Uterus weight and litter weight were less in RCal than in other dams in both experiments.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)