Effects of short-term repeated fasting on anesthesia: an experimental animal study

The objective of this study was to examine the effect of short-term repeated fasting on some anesthetic parameters of ketamine and xylazine, two anesthetics routinely used in rodents. We divided 50 male mice equally into a fasting and a control group. The fasting group was fasted for 4 continuous days every 2  weeks, and this cycle was repeated four times. During the fasting periods, the fasting mice had access to water only, whereas the control group had free access to both water and food. The mice were allowed a week to recover, then each mouse was anesthetized with a ketamine and xylazine (100 mg/kg and 5 mg/kg) injection, and different parameters of anesthesia were recorded and analyzed. Statistical analysis showed significant differences in all parameters (P <  0.05), indicating that short-term repeated fasting may alter the quality of anesthesia.
Source: Comparative Clinical Pathology - Category: Pathology Source Type: research