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Article: Dietary Arginine Supplementation during Early Pregnancy Enhances Embryonic Survival in Rats1,2
- Article from:
- The Journal of Nutrition
- Article date:
- August 1, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright American Institute of Nutrition Aug 2008. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Abstract
Four experiments were conducted with 120 pregnant Sprague-Dawley rats to determine effects of dietary arginine supplementation on embryonic survival. Rats were fed a nonpurified diet supplemented with 1.3% (wt:wt) L-arginine-HCl or 2.2% (wt:wt) L-alanine (isonitrogenous control) throughout pregnancy (Expt. 1), between d 1 and 7 of gestation and then the nonpurified diet until parturition (Expt. 2), between d 1 and 7 of gestation for determining the number of surviving embryos on d 7 (Expt. 3), or between d 1 and 4 of pregnancy for blood sampling on d 5 after overnight food deprivation (Expt. 4). Litter size increased (P < 0.01) in response to arginine supplementation throughout ...