Some Effects of Low Choline Diets

Abstract

The importance of choline in the prevention of “fatty livers” has been previously demonstrated by the investigations of Best 1 and of Channon. 1 The following experiments indicate that the production of a fatty liver on a low choline diet is only one manifestation of a more fundamental deficiency condition.

Male rats, 40 g in weight and 24 days of age, were used in groups of ten. The basal diet consisted of fibrin-4, casein-8, dried egg white-3, salt mixture 2 -4, calcium carbonate-1, codliver oil-5, lard-35, agar-2, and sucrose-38. The water soluble vitamins were supplied by a daily supplement of 0.02 mg of thiamin chloride, 0.02 mg of riboflavin, 0.04 mg of nicotinic acid and 0.1 cc each of concentrated extracts of rice polish and hog liver. The rats consumed 4 to 5 g of food per day. The term fatty liver refers in every case to enlarged livers containing from 8 to 12 times the normal weight of chloroform-soluble substances.

This newly recognized effect of choline deficiency was brought to light when rats were killed and examined at the end of a 10-day experimental period. At this time 90% of the rats showed markedly hemorrhagic kidneys as well as fatty livers unless choline was added to the diet. Similar results were obtained when the vitamin supplement was omitted, when it was fed separately, when it was mixed with the basal ration and when it was doubled in amount. Although the minimum effective level has not yet been determined, the degeneration of the kidneys was prevented if the rats received 2 mg of added choline daily. This amount had no effect on the liver fat. Ten mg of choline per day were required to prevent the fatty liver.