Cereal Chem 49:26 - 33.  |  VIEW ARTICLE
Effect of Quantitative Variation in Nonspecific Nitrogen Supplementation of Corn, Wheat, Rice, and Milk Diets for Adult Men.

C. Kies, H. M. Fox, and S. C.-S. Chen. Copyright 1972 by the American Association of Cereal Chemists, Inc. 

The influence of nonspecific nitrogen (NSN) additions on nitrogen (N) balance (protein nutriture) of men fed diets providing equal, but distinctly sub-optimal, amounts of food protein from several sources has been studied. The effect on N retention of ten men fed 4.0 g. N per subject per day from rice, corn, wheat, or milk plus, in each case, 0.0, 4.0, or 8.0 g. N. per subject per day from an isonitrogenous mixture of glycine and diammonium citrate, was determined. Mean N balances achieved on these three levels of nonspecific supplementation with rice were -2.41, -0.78, and -0.19 g. N, respectively; with corn, -2.19, -1.00, and -0.17 g. N, respectively; with wheat, -2.38, -0.81, and -0.12 g. N, respectively; and with milk, -1.42, -0.50, and +0.66 g. N, respectively. On any given level of total N intake, significantly more N was retained when milk was the source of dietary protein than when rice, wheat, or corn served this purpose. However, the degree of N loss was significantly reduced at each level of total dietary N increase, regardless of the food source employed. Results confirm earlier findings that NSN supplementation of diets apparently has a sparing effect on protein requirements of humans.