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The Relationship of Dietary Factors to the Toxicity of Alloxan¹

The Nutritional Service of the Department of Pediatrics and the Gastro-intestinal Section of the Medical Clinic, School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

The influence of dietary factors on the sensitivity of rats to alloxan has been investigated. The diet was varied with respect to its content of protein and fat, and supplements of methionine, choline, tocopherol, and yeast were given.

The toxicity of alloxan, as measured by the number of rats which survived for 7 days after its injection, was decreased appreciably only when diets very low in fat were fed. There was a slight advantage shown by cocoanut oil over lard or hydrogenated cottonseed oil in the high fat diets. The hemolysis which occurred when alloxan was administered to tocopherol-deficient rats caused a high death rate during the first two days after the injection. Tocopherol and, in an apparently somewhat similar fashion, yeast, reduced the early mortality but had no effect after this initial period.

Diabetes developed in most of the animals regardless of the nature of the diet. Considering those animals as diabetic whose blood sugar, 48 hours after injection with alloxan, was above 200 mg per 100 ml, the incidence of diabetes was slightly, but significantly, lower with diets low in fat or containing cocoanut oil than with those containing lard or hydrogenated cottonseed oil. There was no evidence of any benefit from any other of the variations in diet studied. Even tocopherol, in spite of its very specific effect in preventing hemolysis following the injection of alloxan, gave no protection against the diabetogenic effect of alloxan.

Manuscript received 23 August 1949.