Amino Acid Feeding Studies

Abstract

Summary

Young male rats fed equal, restricted amounts of diets containing low but presumably adequate levels of essential L‐amino acids made equally efficient use of the nitrogen of glutamic acid, aspartic acid or a mixture of 4 other nonessential amino acids for nitrogen gains. The nitrogen of diammonium citrate was only 85% as well utilized as that of the other compounds. At the same restricted calorie intake, nitrogen was more efficiently used when water was added to a diet containing low levels of essential amino acid nitrogen and glutamic acid nitrogen. The response to added water was abolished when the amount of glutamic acid nitrogen was doubled.