Effect of Dietary Taurine and Arginine Supplementation on Bone Mineral Density in Growing Female Rats - Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology - page 315

Abbreviations

ALP Alkaline phosphatase

DPD Deoxypyridinoline

Arg Arginine

Tau Taurine

Arg + Tau Arginine + taurine

DPD/Cr Creatinine excretion

AI Adequate intake

BMD Bone mineral density

BMC Bone mineral content

FER Food ef fi ciency ratio

SBMD Spine bone mineral density

SBMC Spine bone mineral content

FBMD Femur bone mineral density

FBMC Femur bone mineral content

31.1 Introduction

The increase in the life span will be associated with future increases in the prev-
alence of chronic disease. Osteoporosis is one of the major health problems,
particularly with the gradual aging of the population. There is a growing empha-
sis on osteoporosis prevention. So timing of intervention will be important
where the maximum benefit may be in prevention rather than therapy of osteo-
porosis. To ease the future burden of osteoporosis, focusing on prevention will
be the key, and this should include dietary interventions to stimulate bone for-
mation (Mundy 2006 ). Nutrition is important for the formation and maintenance
of bone mineral density (BMD) and for the prevention of osteoporosis. A vari-
ety of dietary factors such as calcium, vitamin D, phosphate, magnesium, and
protein can influence bone. It is also likely that a variety of other dietary factors
such as vitamin K, caffeine, and fluoride have the potential to affect bone.
Evidence suggests that some amino acids may benefit bone health. Arginine
supplementation is used in several disease states. Under normal physiological
conditions, arginine is a semi-essential amino acid that is derived both from
endogenous and dietary sources. And arginine is well tolerated at intravenous,
intra-arterial, or oral doses not exceeding 30 g/day (Luiking and Deutz 2007 ) .
The estimated daily intakes of arginine in the US diet is about 5.4 g (Visek
1986 ), whereas the total arginine whole-body production and consumption are
25 g/day and protein breakdown is a major endogenous source of arginine
(Luiking and Deutz 2007 ). Arginine supplementation has been shown to have an
effect on femur bone mineral content (BMC) in growing female rats (Choi
2007a ) and OVX rats (Choi 2009 ). Taurine supplementation has been shown to