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The Effect of Deficient Diets on the Total Ash, Calcium and Phosphorus Content of Bones¹

Department of Home Economics, University of Texas, Austin

The right fore and hind leg bones of groups of young, male, albino rats which had been kept at stationary body weight for a period of 40 days by means of deficient diets (low calorie, low protein, incomplete protein, and low salt) were pooled and analyzed for total ash, calcium and phosphorus. Similar analyses were made on the bones of normal rats of the same weight (weight controls) and on the bones of normal rats of the same age (age controls). The percentages of total ash, calcium and phosphorus in the bones of the stunted rats are then compared with those in the bones of the controls; the results obtained by comparison with the weight controls are taken to represent the amount of the mineral stored during the stunting period.

The bones of animals stunted by means of calorie, protein and lysine deficiency showed a much larger percentage of total ash, calcium and phosphorus than was present in the bones of normal animals of the same weight but a smaller percentage in each case than is found in the bones of normal animals of the same age. Stunting by means of a low salt diet resulted in loss of total ash, calcium and phosphorus so that the percentages in the bones of animals so stunted are considerably smaller than those characteristic of normal animals of the same weight and greatly reduced in comparison with those of normal animals of the same age.

There is some indication that the Ca:P ratio in bones depends, to some extent at least, on the amounts of calcium and phosphorus present in diet.

Manuscript received 22 June 1935.