Body weight change and nitrogen efficiencies in growing and adult rats fed diets containing various proportions of essential amino acids to total amino acids.

Abstract

By using amino acid mixtures, a comparative study of nutritional effects of dietary essential amino acid proportions (EA %) was made between growing and adult rats. Included were adult rats which were repleting from a 8 day protein depletion. For growing rats, at least 55 EA% was required to attain the maximum values of growth, N balance, N balance efficiency (N balance/N intake) and protein efficiency ratio (PER). The maximum biological value was 94 at the 50 EA% level. For adult rats, at least 40 EA% was required to gain the maximum values of N balance and N balance efficiency under both maintenance and repletion. The biological values were nearly 60 and 80 for maintenance and repletion, respectively.