Nutritional and metabolic effects and significance of mild orotic aciduria during dietary supplementation with arginine or its organic salts after trauma injury in rats.

The effects of acute food deprivation and subsequent refeeding with isonitrogenous oral liquid diets supplemented with arginine (ARG), ARG alpha-ketoglutarate (AKG), or ARG alpha-ketoisocaproate (AKIC) were examined in a Sprague-Dawley rat trauma model (bilateral femur fracture). Both control and trauma rats were starved for 2 days and then pair-fed for 4 days with one of four liquid isonitrogenous diets: diet 1 was a basal casein-based diet, and diets 2, 3, and 4 were the basal diet in which 10% of the nitrogen was replaced by ARG, AKG, or AKIC nitrogen. Two days of starvation resulted in a 13% loss of body weight and also a 27% decrease in the excretion of orotic acid (OA) in control and trauma rats. Although the ARG content of diets 2, 3, and 4 was the same, ARG- and AKIC-supplemented rats excreted significantly (P < .05) more OA than AKG-fed rats. The low level of OA excretion in AKG-fed rats indicates greater use of ARG for metabolic purposes, including efficient urea cycle operation. The metabolic adaptation and nutritional efficacy, i.e., Increased nitrogen retention, larger weight gain, and altered amino acid (AA) metabolism, of AKIC rats seem to be better than in ARG- or AKG-fed rats.