Abstract
In recent years, milk from both humans and experimental animals has been shown to contain a variety of hormones and growth factors. The aim of this study was to determine whether these appear in the milk at a particular stage of lactation and cause developmental changes in the intestine. The approach was to take litters of rat pups born one week apart and exchange their dams when the older pups were at postnatal day 13 and the younger ones were at day 6. Thus, 13 day-old pups were given to dams that were 6 days postpartum (13→6) and vice versa (6→13). The rationale was that if a factor appears in the milk at the end of the second week postpartum and acts as a cue for the enzymic changes in the small intestine that are known to occur in the third postnatal week, then such changes should be delayed in “13→6” pups and accelerated in “6→13” pups. Using jejunal sucrase as a marker enzyme there was no difference between the two experimental groups at ages 17 and 19 days. However, by 21 days of age, sucrase activities of “6→13” pups were significantly higher than those of “13→6” pups. Analysis of stomach contents showed that weaning was complete by day 21 in the “6→13” pups but not in the “13→6” pups. It is concluded that the lactational stage of the dam plays no role in the initiation of sucrase development and affects the later activity of the enzyme only as a result of changes in the timing of weaning. Thus, the possibility that milk-borne factors cue ontogenic changes in the intestine has not been substantiated. (This work was supported by NIH grant number HD 14094.)
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Henning, S. 563 Role of Milk Borne Factors in Intestinal Development. Pediatr Res 15 (Suppl 4), 534 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1203/00006450-198104001-00576
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1203/00006450-198104001-00576