Every-other-day fasting reduces glycolytic capability in the skeletal muscle of young mice

Optimization of food consumption is one the most critical issues of human wellbeing because both overeating and malnutrition can have adverse health effects. These food issues are especially important for children because wrong feeding at this stage of life has long-term consequences for adults and even their progeny. The present study compares the capability of skeletal hind limb muscle of one month old mice to catabolize glucose via glycolytic and pentose phosphate pathways under conditions of eating to satiation (ad libitum, AL feeding) versus limited access to food (dietary restriction in the form of every-other-day fasting, EODF). The steady-state concentrations of glycolytic substrates (glucose and glycogen) and intermediates (pyruvate and lactate) as well as triacylglycerides were generally lower in the muscles of EODF mice than those in AL animals were. EODF males and females had 28–49% lower glucose, 20% lower triacylglycerides and males had 26% lower glycogen levels than their AL counterparts did. The activities of glycolytic enzymes, namely hexokinase, pyruvate kinase, and lactate dehydrogenase were also lower in muscle of EODF than AL mouse groups, whereas the activity of glycogen phosphorylase was higher in EODF males and the activities of phosphofructokinase and glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase did not differ between two animal groups. Collectively our data show that muscles of EODF young mice possess a lower capacity to carry out glycolysis than those from AL fed counterparts. These data agree with findings of higher physical activity of EODF animals which forms an interesting basis for future studies.