Digestive Function in Avitaminoses.

Abstract

McCarrison and others have observed marked pathological changes in the gastrointestinal tracts of animals kept on diets deficient in vitamins and other substances. From such observations it has been inferred that lesser degrees of vitamine deficiency continued over long periods of time might be responsible for various gastrointestinal disturbances in man. Farmer and Redenbaugh prepared extracts of the pancreas and upper intestines of polyneuritic pigeons and found a decrease in the digestive enzymes as compared with controls. The present paper represents the first of several attempts to obtain a quantitative index of various gastrointestinal digestive functions in animals and man based on the principle of feeding an excess of difficultly digestible food substances and estimating the percentage digestion by fecal analysis. Iron oxide was used as a key substance to simplify the utilization determinations. Eight groups of albino rats and 3 groups of guinea pigs were used, each group consisting of 6 animals. Severe conditions of avitaminosis were induced by feeding diets deficient in vitamins A, B, C and D. The effect of cod liver oil administration and treatment with ultraviolet light was also studied. AS a test of digestive efficiency there was added to the diets in successive periods definite amounts of raw potato starch and elastin or ground horn. The feces were analyzed for starch or protein and for iron and utilization calculated, a correction for metabolic nitrogen king made. Starch digestion was in the neighborhood of 90% for all animals including controls. For protein digestion values of 51% for animals on −B diet and 60% for rachitic diets as compared with 68% for controls were the greatest variations noted. It is not believed that these differences are great enough to support the view of an early or specific impairment of digestive function in these avitaminoses.