Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 March 2007
1. Experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of feeding rats on a diet based on a mixture of maize oil fatty acids as the only source of non-protein energy (fatty acid diet) and the influence on these effects of giving such a diet in a single daily meal lasting 2 h.
2. In comparison with a triglyceride diet in which the non-protein energy was in the form of maize oil, feeding ad lib. with the fatty acid diet produced no significant changes in body-weight gain, plasma glucose and plasma ketones concentrations, liver glycogen concentration and protein efficiency ratio.
3. In comparison with the triglyceride diet, meal-feeding with the fatty acid diet produced significantly lower body-weight gain and protein efficiency ratio; moreover, it significantly lowered plasma glucose and liver glycogen concentrations.
4. Rats meal-fed on the fatty acid diet synthesized glucose from protein, as evidenced by the significantly higher liver glycogen concentration detected 6 h after the meal had been eaten, but the increase was significantly lower than in the animals fed on the triglyceride diet. Also, 6 h after the meal had been eaten, the amount of meal remaining in the stomach of rats meal-fed on the fatty acid diet was significantly higher than in those fed on the triglyceride diet.