Figure 3.

Echocardiographic, blood gas and respiratory exchange ratio (RER) for naïve, septic control and septic butyrate infused rats. Rats were either unoperated (naïve, blue circles) or injected with 6 μg/kg of faecal slurry preparation (septic) with or without infusion of 0.6 g/kg/h sodium butyrate started 6 h after the onset of faecal slurry infection (septic control, red squares; septic butyrate-treated, purple triangles). Cardiac and metabolic parameters and temperature were collected 24 h after the infectious challenge (a, heart rate (a i.); stroke volume (a ii.); cardiac output (a iii.); temperature (a iv.); pH (a v.); bicarbonate (a vi.); glucose (a vii.); lactate (a viii.) and PaCO₂ (a ix.)). Each symbol represents one rat, and the horizontal bar the median. * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001. Continuous RER measurements started after surgery (mean ± SD) (b). Blue circles: naïve; red squares: septic controls; purple triangles: septic butyrate-treated. p < 0.001 naïve vs. sepsis from 6–24 h. p = 0.0005 septic control vs. septic butyrate at 24 h.