Activity and food-restriction effects on gastric glandular lesions in the rat: The activity-stress ulcer

Eighteen rats, 60 days old, and 18 rats, 110 days old, were housed in standard activity cages and fed 1 h each day for 21 days. Ten rats, 60 days old, and five rats, 110 days old, died before the end of the experiment. All rats that died revealed extensive lesions in glandular portions of the stomach. Control rats, housed in standard cages and also fed 1 h each day, did not die. Experimental rats that died were more active than experimental rats that survived, and ate less than survivors and normal control rats. This technique is proposed as a new animal model for studying gastrointestinal pathology.