Rat small intestine absorption and membrane digestion in the process of aging

Recently, in our experiments, we used the short-circuit current technique to study the kinetic constants for nutrient transporters in rat gastric-intestinal tract and the thickness of the intestinal unstirred layer near the mucosa surface. It was shown that, during the process of aging, the number of nutrient monomer transporters in the small intestine increases twofold, whereas the affinity of transporters to the correspondent nutrients remains unchanged. The situation for peptides may be opposite. The layer thickness in the vicinity of the mucosa surface, measured through glucose, decreased during the process of aging. It was suggested that, in old rats, the role of the digestive volume is more important, which results in an increase of the number of nutrient monomer transporters.