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Effect of Vitamin B₁₂ in the Diet of the Rat on the Vitamin B₁₂ Contents of Milk and Livers of Young¹

Department of Biochemistry and Nutrition, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York

1. Vitamin B₁₂ in the diet of the dam was transferred to the young during prenatal life, as indicated by the level of the vitamin in the livers of two-day-old rats. The amount found in the livers of young from females on a high vitamin B₁₂ diet was 10 times the amount found in the livers of young from females on the basal diet.

2. The level of vitamin B₁₂ in the milk varied directly with the level in the diet of the dam. The milk from dams on all diets but one contained a higher concentration of vitamin B₁₂ two days after parturition than at the end of the lactation period.

3. The concentration of vitamin B₁₂ in the livers of 22-day-old young from females on the high vitamin B₁₂ diet and from stock females was greater than the concentration of the vitamin in livers of litter mates sacrificed at two days of age. In the case of the basal young, there was a decrease over the lactation period in the amount stored in the liver.

4. The birth weights of young varied directly with the level of vitamin B₁₂ in the female's diet. A high level of vitamin B₁₂ caused an increase in weaning weight, but not as much as the feeding of the stock diet.

5. The quantity of milk curd extracted from the stomachs of weanling young from dams on the stock diet was significantly higher than that removed from the young of dams fed any of the experimental diets.

6. Results of the second and third reproduction-lactation periods indicated a poor reproductive performance of females on the experimental diets, as shown by few conceptions, many young born dead and few weaned as compared with the stock diet animals. The possibility of a deficiency of an unknown factor developing due to the prolonged feeding of the all-vegetable diet plus sulfasuxidine has been discussed.

Manuscript received 12 February 1953.