Abstract
It is well known that various nutritional essentials are concerned with the maintenance of normal epithelial tissue. As part of a program concerning nutritional deficiencies and gastrointestinal epithelium, we have reported the finding of marked antral gastritis on calcium deficient diets. 1 Similar, less marked and less constant lesions were also reported on thiamine deficiency. Under various conditions of inanition the fundic mucosa will show rather typical areas of hemorrhage. 2 Previously, many papers have appeared on the involvement of nutritional deficiencies in the production of hyperplasia of the forestomach epithelium of rats. 3 In none of these cases, even when modifications were introduced to accentuate the process, have penetrating lesions been observed which could in the narrower sense of the word be designated as ulcers or which resembled typical ulcers as they occur spontaneously in man.
Further observations have shown that on a diet deficient in pantothenic acid penetrating ulcers are produced in rats. The diet contained all the known nutritional factors necessary for growth except pantothenic acid, and had the following composition per 100 g of diet: vitamin “free” casein (Labeo) 18.0; cerelose 71.9; salt mixture 6.1 (Ca 1.0, P 0.55); cottonseed oil 2.0; celluflour 2.0. Incorporated in the oil were 10 mg alpha tocopherol and 1500 international units of vitamin A as carotene. The celluflour carried: thiamine HO and pyridoxine HO 1 mg each; riboflavin 2 mg; niacin 4 mg and 2-methyl-naphthoquinone 0.5 mg.
Out of a larger group covering various age ranges, 45 animals have been autopsied: 23 older rats with an initial age averaging 394 (271-620) days and 22 younger rats starting at 42 to 105 days. The average experimental time for the older animals was 100 (67-140) days and for the younger one 125 (87-185) days.
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