Suppression of Food Intake in the Rat by Tung Oil
Tung oil has previously been found to suppress voluntary food intake when mixed with the diet. When tung oil or corn oil were fed by stomach tube to weanling and adult rats, the voluntary intake of laboratory chow was depressed by both lipids. The corn-oil fed animals readjusted their caloric intake to their prefeeding level in adults and to the level consumed by chow-only fed weanlings of the same age. However, the tung-oil fed adult animals consumed only one-half the dry food intake of the corn-oil fed animals (p < 0.001). Consequently the adult tung-oil fed animals lost significantly more (p < 0.01) of their body weight than did the corn-oil fed controls. This suggests that the mechanism of suppression of food intake by tung oil operates at some level other than taste or consistency of the diet.