Effects of preweaning nutritional deprivation on basal metabolism and thermoregulatory thermogenesis in the rat.

1. Nutritional deprivation was induced preweaning in Wistar rats by increasing the litter size to sixteen, while paired litters with only five pups served as controls. The nutritionally deprived pups were rehabilitated after weaning by ad lib. access to an adequate diet. 2. The body-weights and body lengths were significantly lower in the nutritionally deprived group and significant differences persisted even after 9 weeks of rehabilitation. 3. The body temperature of the nutritionally deprived animals was significantly lower than that of their paired controls, both before and following nutritional rehabilitation, except for a short period after weaning when the nutritionally deprived animals were initially given the diet ad lib. 4. The resting oxygen consumption of the nutritionally deprived animals was comparable to that of the controls when corrected for metabolic body size, both before and after weaning. Noradrenaline-stimulated increase in O2 consumption (non-shivering thermogenesis; NST) was reduced by 50% at weaning in the nutritionally deprived animals and returned to levels comparable to those of controls within a short period of rehabilitation. 5. The decrease in NST capacity seen in the nutritionally deprived animals was associated with an inability to thermoregulate when exposed to cold (5 degrees), resulting in death. Cold-induced thermogenesis (CIT) also reappeared soon after nutritional rehabilitation. 6. Reduction in metabolic rate, NST and CIT seen in the animals nutritionally deprived preweaning was short-lived and disappeared soon after nutritional rehabilitation. Rapid reversal of these physiological changes indicates that they do not confer any long-term benefit or change in metabolic efficiency and are unlike the changes in body size and growth which do not completely recover following nutritional rehabilitation.