ABSORPTION IN THE ISOLATED BOWEL SEGMENT

An isolated bowel segment (IBS) is a viable amesenteric segment of int estine. This study was undertaken to investigate the effects of mesent efic vascular and neural supply on intestinal absorption. Ten rats wer e used for leucine absorption and another 10 for glucose absorption ex periments. L-leucine, 12 ml of 15.0 mM/L, or 3.0 mM/L of D-glucose sol ution were recirculated through the IBS (n = 5) and rat jejunum that u nderwent sham operation (n = 5) at 2.56 ml/min for 90 min. Absorption was expressed as millimoles of leucine or glucose per gram of mucosal protein. The Student's t test was used for statistical analysis; a p l ess-than-or-equal-to 0.05 was considered significant. The net absorpti on Of L-leucine was 36.20 +/- 3.31 mM/g of mucosal protein in the IBS and 15.52 +/- 1.48 mM/g of mucosal protein in the control group (p < 0 .001). The net absorption Of D-glucose was 3.82 t 0.26 mM/g of mucosal protein in the experimental group and 4.34 +/- 0.31 mM/g of mucosal p rotein in the control group (p = 0.02). This study concludes that abso rption of leucine and glucose in the IBS is preserved after mesenteric division.