Pair-feeding in the dietary control of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase.

The great increase ("overshoot") in glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase activity in liver cytoplasm which follows the transfer of rats from starvation to a high sucrose diet has been recognized for a number of years. Also the fact that transferring fed rats to the high sucrose diet results only in a small increase in G6PD activity while transfer of "starved" rats to the high sucrose diet results in a 10 to 20-fold ("overshoot") increase in G6PD activity is equally recognized. This report demonstrates that the "overshoot" following 4 days without food is not due to an increase in food intake compared to the food intake of fed rats since pair-feeding during this refeeding at three different levels does not eliminate the effect of the prior fast.