Fat Formation from Sucrose and Glucose

Abstract

By the paired feeding method, as improved by Mitchell and Beadles, rats were placed on diets identical in all respects, except that one member of each pair received dextrose and the other sucrose, as the chief source of energy. Bomb calorimetric determinations proved that the two diets were equal in heat value. Without exception (nine pairs), the sucrose animal gained weight more rapidly than the dextrose animal. This result could not have happened by chance oftener than once in 512 trials. On the basis of the number of weeks each rat surpassed its pair mate the total result was 110.5 for the sucrose rat against 69.5 for the dextrose rat, the deviation from a chance frequency distribution being 3.1 times the standard deviation of such a distribution of 180 events. Control young animals and seven pairs of the survivors after 16 to 29 weeks of feeding were analyzed for nitrogen (protein), glycogen and total fat. The results were not quite so concordant in the mature animals as in the controls, but showed clearly that the difference in the weight gains was due principally to fat. It is concluded, therefore, that sucrose has a considerably greater fattening effect in the rat than dextrose.