Response of Digestive Carbohydrases and Growth to Graded Doses and Administration Frequency of Hydrocortisone and Adrenocorticotropic Hormone in Nursing Piglets

Abstract

Graded levels of hydrocortisone 21-acetate (HYD) (0, 18, 16 and 24 mg/kg BW) were injected into nursing piglets every other day (Exp. 1) or 24 mg of HYD/kg BW was administered 0, 2, 4 or 6 times during the treatment period (12 d) with equal time (6 d, 3 d or 2 d) between subsequent injections (Exp. 2). Adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) was injected to provide 0, 5, 10 or 15 IU/kg BW (Exp. 3), or 15 IU ACTH/kg BW was injected 0, 1, 2 or 3 times (Exp. 4). The injection treatment periods were from d 14 to d 26 postpartum. Pancreatic and intestinal amylase activity was maximized by the highest dosage of HYD (24 mg) and ACTH (15 IU) when given at 2- or 4-d intervals, respectively (P less than .10). However, four injections of HYD administered 3 d apart optimized the activity of this enzyme in Exp. 2 (P less than .05). Intestinal sucrase and maltase were unresponsive to ACTH regardless of dosage or injection frequency (P greater than .10). The response of these two enzymes to HYD was inconsistent. Maltase activity was elevated (P less than .10) by the two most frequent injection treatments, and sucrase activity was simultaneously depressed. Lactase activity tended (P less than .15) to be depressed by the highest treatment level in all four experiments. Both dosage and frequency methods of increasing HYD administration resulted in hepatic and pancreatic hypertrophy.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)