Abstract
Summary
Growth, pancreatic function, and intestinal protein digestion were studied in weanling rats fed milk protein or soybean protein with or without soybean trypsin inhibitor (SBTI). Diets containing SBTI caused pancreatic enlargement with corresponding increases in total trypsin and chymotrypsin activities. Enzyme activities per milligram of pancreatic tissue remained constant during all dietary treatments. These same SBTI-containing diets caused increased chymotryp sin activity and stability, decreased trypsin stability, but did not change free trypsin activity in the intestinal contents. Intestinal protein digestion, measured in an in vitro system, was not impaired in the intestinal contents of SBTI-fed rats. Growth rates were depressed from normal values of 5.0-5.3 g/day to subnormal values of 3.1-4.6 by two of the four SBTI diets indicating that the growth depression exerted by raw or minimally processed soybean products is not caused by SBTI alone and apparently occurs by some mechanism other than by interference with protein digestion.
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