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Relative Bioavailability of Zinc using Weight Gain of Rats¹

Department of Nutritional Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 and Cereals Research Unit, Western Regional Research Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94710

Weanling rats were fed semi-purified diets with varying zinc levels in order to derive new measures of relative bioavailability of zinc (RBAZ). The various measures for RBAZ were slope-ratio assays of weight gain, total liver zinc and total femur zinc along with five alternative measures developed from sigmoidal curves for weight gain estimated by a non-linear, least-squares curve fitting computer program. The slopes of weight gains explained a higher proportion of the true measure than similar slopes of femurs or livers as indicated by R². The 95% confidence intervals of ratios were narrowest for weight gain assays. Four of the five alternative methods had RBAZ similar to the RBAZ of slope-ratio weight gain assays. These new methods provided a diversity of information and allowed more information to be obtained than from slope-ratio assays alone.

KEY WORDS: • relative bioavailability of zinc • zinc availability

¹ Supported in part by Hatch Project CA-B*-NTS-3790-H and U.S. PHS Traineeship Grant AH-04455.

² To whom reprint requests should be sent at present address: Food Science and Nutrition, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602.

Manuscript received 26 November 1979.