Abstract
Our interest has been drawn during the past few years to the question of the effect of various dietary deficiencies or excesses upon the deposition of cholesterol and cholesterol ester in tissues; manifested pathologically as fatty livers, arteriosclerotic arteries and gall stones. The following is a preliminary report of the first of a series of studies of tissues of rats fed cholesterol with diets of known but varying fat content, vitamin intake, etc.
The litters of rats used were cut to 8, 4 males and 4 females, shortly after birth. At 21 days of age, 2 males and 2 females from each litter were placed upon the diets containing cholesterol, while the littermate controls were placed upon the same diets without the cholesterol. After a feeding period of approximately 60 days the rats from both groups were killed by cutting the spinal cord at the base of the brain. The tissues were separated as quickly as possible and samples weighed for determination of moisture and of lipid content and in some cases for histological examination. The samples for lipid determinations were ground with sand and extracted to exhaustion with alcohol-ether.
The present report is limited to the composition of the livers of 2 groups of 16 animals each fed 1% cholesterol with basal diets consisting of 20% baked and extracted casein, 4% Osborne-Mendel salt mixture, 4% agar. In the first series this was supplemented with 15% Crisco and 47% starch, while in the second series 10% Crisco and 62% starch were used. For the experimental groups the cholesterol was dissolved in the melted Crisco and thoroughly mixed with the rest of the diet, so that cholesterol intake was strictly proportional to food intake.
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