Bone Abstracts

During early life undernutrition impairs normal weight and height gain that affects bone health. During recovering it is required an extra-amount of Ca to ensure the high demands of bone mineralization. A mixture of galactooligosaccharides (GOS) and fructooligosaccharides (FOS) would be a useful tool to increase mineral intestinal absorption to enhancing the amount of Ca to be retained into bone. Our objective was to evaluate, in an experimental model of protein restriction (PR) the effect of a mixture of GOS/FOS during recovering. Undernourished male rats were obtained by feeding from weaning a low protein diet (casein: 4%) during 7 days. Then, they were divided in two groups receiving AIN’93G (UA) or AIN’93G+5% GOS/FOS (UP) till day- 50. Normal growing rats received from weaning to the end of the study, one of the two mentioned experimental diets (NA and NP groups respectively). Body weight (BW) and length (BL), and intestinal lactobacilli (DL) colonies development were measured weekly. At T50: caecum pH, Ca and phosphorus (P) absorption, femoral Ca and P content, total skeleton bone mineral content and density (BMC and BMD) (Lunar DXA), bone volume (BV/TV), growth plate cartilage thickness (GPC.Th), hypertrophic zone thickness (HpZ.Th) and tibia length (TL) were evaluated. There was a stop in growth during the PR period. After recovering, UA and UP increased their BW and BL without reaching NA and NP values. UP and NP increased DL and decreased caecum pH (P<0.0001). UP showed a significant increase in: Ca and P absorption (P<0.05), femur Ca and P content (P<0.01) and BMC (P<0.05) compared to UA. UP showed significantly higher BV/TV, GPC.Th, HpZ.Th and TL compared to NA (P<0.05)

Conclusion: The consumption of the GOS/FOS mixture allowed increasing Ca and P absorption and their retention in bone, suggesting its usefulness to give an extra amount of Ca and P not only during normal growth but also during nutritional recovery from undernutrition.

® N. V. Nutricia. Grant numbers: PIP 11220100100004 and UBACyT 20020100100320.