THE EFFECT OF PROTEIN DENSITY OF FOOD ON FOOD-INTAKE AND NUTRITIONAL-STATUS OF TUMOR-BEARING RATS

Current clinical practice emphasizes increasing calorie and protein in take to abate the nutritional decline that frequently occurs in cancer patients. Using an animal model of tumor-induced anorexia, we found t hat increasing the protein density of food resulted in a net increase in protein intake, but a decrease in the food intake of both healthy a nd tumor-bearing animals. The increased protein intake did not affect the nutritional status of tumor-bearing animals as indicated by body w eight or serum levels of total protein, insulin, or insulin-like growt h factor 1. These data suggest that factors regulating feeding respons es to increased protein density of food are intact in hypophagic tumor -bearing rats, and that increased protein intake does not influence pl asma levels of hormones requisite for protein synthesis. These data ma y partially explain why interventions to improve the nutritional intak e of cancer patients have marginal effects on body weight, accrual of lean body mass, or synthesis of visceral proteins. (C) 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.