Effect of four enteral foods on the small bowel of undernourished rats after midgut resection

Objective: To describe the effects of new enteral foods on the adaptation o f the gut mucosa after massive intestinal resection in rats. Design: Laboratory experiment. Setting: Teaching hospital, Spain. Subjects: 91 male Wistar rats, 69 of which were studied (5 were excluded an d 17 died). Interventions: Previously undernourished rats were subjected to either mass ive bowel resection (n = 30) or laparotomy (n = 26) and fed four enteral hy pocaloric diets for 7 days: Alitraq (n = 7 in each group), Impact (n = 8 an d 7), Enrich (n = 8 and 6), and Elemental (n = 7 and 6). The remainder were not operated on and fed chow (n = 7) or a diet containing no protein (n = 6). Two diets were high in protein (Alitraq and Impact) and two contained n ormal amounts (Enrich and Elemental). Main outcome measures: Bowel mucosal thickness and proliferation; disacchar idase activity; intestinal weight and length; body weight; and plasma somat ostatin, IGF-1, and peptide YY concentrations. Results: Enriched diets provided a higher body and intestinal weight, and i ncreased length of jejunal and ileal villous size. Peptide concentrations w ere modified by resection but not by the diet given. Concentrations of soma tostatin and insulin-like growth factor were reduced in all groups with the exception of somatostatin in the two diets high in protein in the sham-ope rated rats. Conclusions: Enriched diets all improve the intestinal adaptive response to massive bowel resection in rats, offering advantages over diets with norma l amounts of protein.