Effects of early-life undernutrition in artificially reared rats: subsequent body and organ growth.

1. Four groups of rat pups were reared: mother-reared (MR) control (well-fed) and undernourished (MRC and MRU respectively) and artificially reared (AR) control and undernourished (ARC and ARU respectively). Pups for artificial rearing were fitted with a gastric cannula on postnatal day 5 and were fed, by intermittent gastric infusion, expressed rats' milk (days 5-7), mixtures of rats' milk and milk-substitute (days 8-16), and milk-substitute only (days 17-20). Solid food was available to MR pups throughout and to AR pups from day 14. Undernutrition, imposed from postnatal days 5 to 25, was effected initially by underfeeding the mother (MRU) or by infusing restricted quantities of milk (ARU). Weaning was at 21 d and undernutrition from day 21 to day 25 was by restricting the supply of solid food. All rats were fed ad lib. from 25 d. 2. The developmental milestone, eye-opening, was delayed by undernutrition but unaffected by artificial rearing. 3. Growth curves in body-weight during the refeeding phase were influenced most by previous undernutrition and to a lesser extent (also negatively) by artificial rearing. 4. Fourteen measures of body and organ growth were taken at autopsy at 39 weeks. Twelve measures were affected by nutrition and only four by rearing (weight of whole body, epididymal fat pads, renal fat pads and adrenals). 5. AR rats had lighter epididymal and renal fat pads than MR rats perhaps due to the low fat content of the expressed milk they received early in artificial rearing.