The Relative Effects of Certain Saccharides and of Vitamin D on Mineral Metabolism of Rats

Abstract

The influence of starch, lactose, sucrose, or cod liver oil rations on calcium, phosphorus and magnesium metabolism was studied. Control-feeding technic was adapted to groups of four litter-mate rats, each of which received one of the above rations. The lactose and cod liver oil rations caused greater retentions of all three elements than did the starch or sucrose rations with one exception, i.e., the cod liver oil ration caused no greater magnesium storage than did the sucrose ration. Greater increments in retentions were obtained in the cod liver oil-fed animals than in the lactose-fed rats. The higher bone-ash values resulting from the feeding of vitamin D were accompanied by greater retentions of calcium and phosphorus. Similar results were found for the lactose animals except in the case of phosphorus, for which only 69% of the instances showed a parallelism to bone ash.