Providing male rats deficient in iron and n-3 fatty acids with iron and alpha-linolenic acid alone affects brain serotonin and cognition differently from combined provision

Table 1 Weight gain, food intake, and brain weight of male control rats and ID + n-3 FAD rats repleted with an Fe + ALA, ID + ALA, Fe + n-3 FAD, or ID + n-3 FAD diet for 5 wk

						p Value
	Control	Fe + ALA	ID + ALA	Fe + n-3 FAD	ID + n-3 FAD	Fe	ALA	Fe × ALA
Body weight, g	409 ± 8.0	338 ± 12.5*^,Δ,¥	302 ± 7.4*^,#	320 ± 7.8*^,¥	290 ± 7.1*^,#,‡	0.001	0.29	0.83
Total body weight gain, g/35d	124 ± 4.4	167 ± 9.4*^,Δ,¥	136 ± 3.8^#,‡	154 ± 4.0*^,Δ,¥	138 ± 4.3^#,‡	0.001	0.43	0.30
Total food intake, g/35d	711 ± 14.3	701 ± 26.1^Δ,¥	624 ± 12.1*^,#,‡	666 ± 12.2^Δ,¥	602 ± 9.0*^,#,‡	<0.001	0.14	0.78
Relative weight gain, g/g food intake	0.17 ± 0.01	0.24 ± 0.01*^,Δ	0.22 ± 0.01*^,#	0.23 ± 0.00*	0.23 ± 0.00*	0.20	0.98	0.14

Values are means ± SEM, n = 8–10 per group. Abbreviations: ALA, alpha-linolenic acid; n-3 FAD, n-3 fatty acid deficient; Fe, iron; ID, iron deficient.
p Values correspond to two-way ANOVA to test effects of dietary Fe (deficient vs. sufficient) and dietary ALA (deficient vs. sufficient), and Fe × ALA interactions.
*P <0.05 versus control group, analyzed using 1-way ANOVA with diet as between-subject variable followed by post hoc Dunnett’s test to determine whether experimental (repletion) groups differed from age-matched positive-control rats after repletion with Fe and/or ALA.
^#P <0.05 versus Fe + ALA group; ^ΔP <0.05 versus ID + ALA group; ^‡P <0.05 versus Fe + n-3 FAD group; ^¥P <0.05 versus ID + n-3 FAD group; Analyzed using 1-way ANOVA with diet (excluding control group) as between-subject variable followed by post hoc Tukey’s test to determine differences between experimental (repletion) groups.

ISSN: 1476-511X