Effect of Pantothenic Acid on the Nutritional Achromotrichia

Abstract

Greying of the fur was first observed by Morgan, Cook and Davison and Lunde and Kringstad in black rats maintained on diets deficient in the vitamin B complex. Addition of preparations containing “filtrate factor”, of liver extracts containing pantothenic acid or of brewers' yeast have been reported to prevent the development of greying or to restore the black pigmentation of the hair. In our laboratory, greying of the hair was obtained in black and piebald rats on a diet consisting of casein, vitamin free, 18%; sucrose, 67%; butter fat, 9%; salt mixture, 4%; cod liver oil, 2%, and supplemented with thiamin, riboflavin, nicotinamide and vitamin B6. On this diet greying of the fur developed in approximately 80% of the animals within 4 weeks. At this time, the animals reached stationary weights and showed, in addition to the grey symmetrical patterns of the fur, signs characteristic of pantothenic acid deficiency in rats, namely, thinning of the fur, generalized scaly dermatitis, inflammation of the nasal mucosa, blood-caked whiskers, and hemorrhages in various organs, particularly in the adrenal cortex. The addition of graded doses of pantothenic acid (calcium pantothenate, Merck) to the diet demonstrated that a daily supplement of 80 or 100 μg of calcium pantothenate, e. g., doses representing the daily requirement for pantothenic acid in rats, prevented, besides the above mentioned deficiency symptoms, the greying of the fur, whereas daily doses of 5, 10, or 20 μg were insufficient to prevent the greying, and 40 μg gave inconsistent results. Comparable results were obtained with various concentrates from rice bran and liver. Although the addition of these concentrates caused better growth responses than pantothenic acid alone, their efficacy in preventing the greying of the hair was found to parallel closely their content of pantothenic acid as measured by the bacteriological assay.