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Effect of Restricted Feed Intake on Ovarian Compensatory Hypertrophy in the Rat ^{1, 2,}

The University of Manitoba, ³ Winnipeg 3, Canada

Abstract

Body weight gain, pituitary weight and right ovary weight were studied in female rats in a 2 x 2 x 3 factorial experiment. Non-operated rats were autopsied on either day 10 (initial controls) or day 20 (final controls) of the experiment. Rats that were hemiovariectomized on day 10 (left ovary removed) were autopsied on day 20. The animals were either young (approximately 2 months old) or old (approximately 4 months old) and were maintained during the experiment on either 50% or 100% of ad libitum feed intake.

Restricted feed intake reduced body weight gain (P<.01) and pituitary weight (P<.01). Young rats gained more weight (P<.01) and had smaller pituitary glands (P<.01) than did old rats. A greater difference in right ovary weight due to feed level was observed in young rats compared to that in old rats (age x nutrition, P<.05), suggesting that pituitary gonadotropin secretion was altered to a greater extent by differences in feed level in the young rats than in the old rats. On full feed the right ovary weight of hemiovariectomized rats averaged larger than that for either control group. On restricted feed, however, the average right ovary weight for hemiovariectomized rats did not exceed that of initial controls, but was greater than that observed in final controls (nutrition x treatment, P<.01). This observation suggests that restricted feed intake inhibited the rise in gonadotropin secretion that is required to produce compensatory hypertrophy of the ovary. However, removal of one ovary in rats on restricted feed apparently prevented the pituitary hypofunction that occurred in intact rats on restricted feed.

¹ This work was supported by a grant from the University of Manitoba Graduate Research Fund.

² The assistance of Dr. F. Chebib in the statistical analysis of the data is gratefully acknowledged.

³ Department of Oral Biology.