Fig. 1.

Ad libitum feeding induced catch-up growth in growth-retarded female rats. The rats weaned on day 20 were fed ad libitum until the day when their body weights reached 75 g and then subjected to a restricted feeding to keep their body weights at 70–80 g by day 49. Then, half of the animals were subjected to ad libitum feeding thereafter and the other half were remained food-restricted. Values are expressed as the mean ± SD (n = 8 each). Asterisks indicate significant difference in body weights between the ad libitum-fed rats and the age-matched food-restricted controls (* P < 0.05, Student’s t-test).