Relationship between the ratio of increase in lean tissue to body weight gain and energy required to gain body weight in growing rats

Although the energy stored in the lean tissue (LT) and adipose tissue (AT) is well known, the energy required to synthesise these tissues is obscure. Theoretically, the energy at the point at which ALT/A body weight (BW) reaches 100 % on a regression line, which indicates the relationship between ALT/ABW and the energy required for BW gain, is considered to be the energy expended to synthesise LT. Therefore, we investigated this relationship in rats. Rats were fed diets with different ratios of protein, fat and carbohydrates because their ALT/ABW values were expected to be different. Six-week-old male Sprague-Dawley rats had ad libitum access to normal (N, n 6), high-fat (HF, n 7) or high-protein (HP, n 8) diets for 4 weeks. The ALT/ABW was 0<middle dot>77 in the N, 0<middle dot>70 in the HF and 0<middle dot>87 in the HP groups, respectively. The average energy required to gain BW was 8<middle dot>8 kJ/g in the N group, 7<middle dot>0 kJ/g in the HF group and 11<middle dot>3 kJ/g in the HP group. We observed a positive correlation between ALT/ABW and energy required for BW gain. The regression line demonstrated that the energy expended to synthesise LT was 13<middle dot>9 kJ/g and AT was - 7 <middle dot> 9 kJ/g. Therefore, combined with the energy stored in LT, the energy required to accumulate LT is approximately 19 kJ/g, whereas the energy to accumulate AT could not be elucidated.