Elemental Diets play an important role in nutritional management of surgical fields along with intravenous hyperalimentation. While there have been theories claiming Elemental Diets can be absorbed without digestive processes due to their well-defined chemical composition, optimum length of intestine for intestinal absorption or absorption mechanisms of individual nutritional components, etc., are yet to be fully understood.
Therefore, we experimentally investigate the intestinal absorptions of Elemental Diets in the present study.
Following the method of Thiry vella, the resected instestinal segments of jejunum, ileum, colon of rats weighing between 250 and 300 gm are made. The lengths of the segment of colon and those of jejunum and ileum are 10 and 15cm, respectively. After injecting ED-AC solution of dilution 1 Kcal/mf into each intestinal segments, total amount of excretion is obtained. By measuring amino acid, glucose, fat, electrolyte contents of the excretion, the absorption characteristics of different intestinal segments are analysed.
The results obtained from this study are as follows:
1) The combined absorption rates of amino acids are 73.2% for jejunal segment, 82.6% for ileal segment, 39.6% for colon segment.
2) The absorption rate of individual amino acid in different intestinal segments are
almost equal for jejunum and ileum, however it differs in colon and small intestine.
3) The absorption rate of glucose is 50.5% for jejunal segment, 53.1% for ileum seg-
ment and 35.6% for colon segment.
4) The absorption rate of water is higher in small intestine than in colon and that of electrolyte characteristically depends on individual intestinal segment.
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