Benzylpenicillin Toxicity in Albino Rats Fed Synthetic High Sugar Diets

Abstract

Young adult male and female albino rats were fed 2 high sugar standard vitamin deficient diets (pyridoxine deficient diet and choline deficient diet) and given daily an oral LD50(0.1L) of benzylpenicillin. The dose of benzylpenicillin was sufficient to kill 50% of rats fed laboratory chow in 100 days or one tenth their lifespan (0.1L). A fulminating reaction developed in the rats given benzylpenicillin and fed the high sugar vitamin deficient diets and over half the animals died within 2 weeks when housed separately and within 2 days when aggregated. Over the same interval there were no deaths in animals fed the vitamin deficient diets alone and less than 10% deaths in rats given benzylpenicillin and fed laboratory chow. Vitamin supplementation did not lower the death rate but 1 mo. pretreatment with benzylpenicillin and a chow diet did prevent the fulminating reaction. The fulminating toxic reaction was due to a combination of the toxicity of the high sugar content of the diets plus the toxicity of the benzylpenicillin. It was calculated that rats on these standard vitamin deficient diets ate in one day an amount of sugar which would kill over half the animals if given at one time on an empty stomach.