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Zinc-DDT Interrelationships in Growth and Reproduction in the Rat^1,2,

Departments of Animal Science and Food Science, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32601

Female rats were fed diets containing low levels of DDT, parathion and carbaryl for 4 months while subjected to the added stresses of pregnancy and moderately low (8 to 10 ppm) or very high (7,000 ppm) levels of dietary zinc. No measurable effects of pesticides or of the low intake of zinc were noted on growth, reproduction, or enzyme activities. The high zinc diet resulted in slower growth, death of some fetuses and an increase in zinc and DDT in maternal livers. Hemoglobin levels in both maternal and fetal bloods were unaffected by either pesticides or high zinc alone, but were reduced when pesticides were fed with the high zinc diet. DDT and metabolites were found in the livers of full-term fetuses, demonstrating the transfer of these chlorinated hydrocarbon compounds across the placenta.

KEY WORDS: • zinc • DDT • reproduction

¹ Florida Agricultural Experiment Stations Journal Series no. 4034.

² Supported in part by RMA Grant 12-14-100-9136(61) from the Human Nutrition Research Division, Agricultural Research Service, U. S. Department of Agriculture.

³ Presented at the annual meeting of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, Atlantic City, New Jersey, 1969, Federation Proc. 28: 303 (abstr.).

Manuscript received 29 July 1971.