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Effect of Long Time Feeding of Whole Milk Diets to White Rats¹

Animal Husbandry Department, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York

Albino rats were divided into 6 groups of 60 each at the time of weaning. Each of these groups consisted of 20 males and 40 females. Half of the females were bred and half were not. The diets for the first 4 groups consisted chiefly of whole fresh milk supplemented with traces of manganese, iron, iodine, copper and cod liver oil. Group 1 was fed only this milk, group 2 was fed similar milk containing 10% of sucrose dissolved in it, group 3 received the milk and had free access to dry sucrose, group 4 had similar access to a 10% solution of sucrose in water. Group 5 was fed a mixed stock diet supplemented with 10% of its weight of whole, cooked dried-egg, while group 6 was fed only the stock diet. The animals were fed these diets until they died in old age.

From early in life until the end, the rats fed milk containing dissolved sucrose were overweight. Males of this group failed to attain a normal span of life and females failed in reproduction. Animals fed milk diets had denser bones in old age. Those fed milk or milk containing dissolved sucrose had no decayed teeth at the time of death while those drinking milk with free access to either a water solution of sucrose or dry sugar had a substantial incidence of decay. Those consuming the dried sucrose suffered the most from decayed molars. Thus, milk consumed directly with sucrose seems to protect teeth against decay.

No evidence was found of a shortening of the span of life as the result of consumption of 10% of whole egg in the diet and the life span of males seemed substantially increased.

In all groups comparable animals consumed about equal amounts of sucrose. This taste for sucrose persisted until the end of the life span indicating no decline of interest in the sweetness of sugar. Females consumed more calories and more fluids per unit of body weight than males. As age progresses the calorie consumption is relatively constant affording no evidence for a decline in basal metabolism with age in the case of rats.

About 20% of the rats, in groups fed milk diets, had hair balls in the stomach and the feeding of ground cellulose did not modify this condition. Females that had been bred had a higher incidence of abscesses of the reproductive organs than virgin rats. All rats at the end of life, irrespective of the cause of death, suffered from severe involvement of the lungs and ears but no special pathology could be related to the diets.

² U. S. Department of the Interior, Cortland, N. Y.

³ 51 East 42nd St., New York City, N. Y.

⁴ Snodgras Laboratory of Pathology, St. Louis, Mo.

Manuscript received 23 June 1954.