Satiety and behavioral caloric compensation following intragastric glucose loads in the rat

Administered glucose solutions intragastrically to male Sprague-Dawley albino rats having free access to food except during the 1st hr. after intubation. The distribution of meals after intubation indicated that effects of glucose both prolong satiety and contribute to its initiation, during the dark or the bright phase of the lighting cycle. From about 5 hr. after intubation and from the start of the 2nd meal, the net cumulative inhibition of food intake amounted to apparently close to exact caloric compensation for the glucose load. Feeding was not differentially inhibited by control loads of the same volume as the glucose load, whether the control was air, water, sodium chloride, urea, or 3-methylglucose. Results provide the 1st demonstration in support of a theory of short-term behavioral regulation according to an energostatic signal generated from glucose.