Study of Effects of Sex and Body weight on Basal Acid Secretion in Rat

The amount of gastric acid secretion is not the same and changes during the time. May of the
sex hormone effect on gastric acid secretion, all attempted were to use male animal in experiments.
Because of different reports on basal acid output in rat (10 to 70 μmol/h), in present study was
attempted to evaluate the effect of sex and body weight on basal acid output.
There was rats (n=51) range weight 140-370 g male and female was kept in temperature
(23 ± 2 C) and light period. (12h light, 12h dark) Experiments were started in 8:00 AM, and 18
hours before experiment, animal were starved from food (except water). Animal’s anesthetized with
Sodium thiopental, and a silicon tube was inserted in stomach via duodenum. The amount of acid
was measured with aid of automatic acid titrator (TTT 80), with Na OH 0.1 N to pH=7. Using
student t-Test and Spearman correlation coefficient compared the results (P<0.05).
In this study the mean of basal gastric acid secretion did not showed any difference between
male and female. Means of the body and stomach weight were more in male (P<0.05), but the ratio
of the stomach / body weight was bigger in female (P<0.05). In both male and female, basal acid
output was correlated with body weight (r=0.4, P<0.01) and stomach weight (R=0.44, P<0.01).
However, it seems that is no difference in the mean of basal acid output between male and
female rats. Despite of difference in body weight, there in no need to use only male animal in these
kinds of experiments.