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Periodontal Disease in the Rice Rat¹

III. Survey of Dietary Influences

Harvard School of Dental Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts

Four hundred and eighty rice rats were used in a series of 6 experiments to test their ability to survive under various housing conditions and on different dietary regimens.

Housing the rice rats individually in screen-bottom cages or in groups in cages with wood shavings for bedding resulted in comparable initiation and progression of periodontal lesions.

Subgingival hair impaction did not occur on any other dietary regimen than a mixed grain diet. On this diet, even weekly shaving of the rice rats did not prevent some hair impaction. By choosing the appropriate diet, subgingival hair impaction can be eliminated as a possible etiologic factor in the incidence and progression of periodontal lesions.

Physical consistency of the diets appeared to be related in some way to the production of periodontal disease. Laboratory chow pellets caused severe manifestations of periodontal disease. When the chow was fed as a finely ground powder, a greatly reduced incidence of periodontal disease resulted. However, it is noteworthy that other finely divided diets such as rations 700 and 4 are capable of causing as much periodontal disease as chow pellets.

Complete elimination of carbohydrate from the diet caused major reductions in lesions of the soft tissues of the periodontium and moderate reductions in lesions of the mineralized tissues. Reduced dietary carbohydrate contents produced by addition of lard tended to cause similar reductions of lesser degree.

Supplementation with vitamin C and vitamins A and D had no influence on the initiation and progression of periodontal lesions. There was a suggestion that high levels of vitamin B complex supplementation cause minor reductions in the peridontal disease syndrome.

Wide variations in the calcium and phosphorus levels and ratios in the diet did not influence the manifestations of the periodontal disease syndrome in the rice rat. Even where growth retardation occurred as a result of dietary restriction in calcium, there was no exacerbation in the periodontal lesions.

The addition of either 15 or 30 p. p. m. of fluoride to the drinking water of rice rats did not alter their rates of growth nor the initiation and progression of periodontal lesions.

² Now at the Murry and Leonie Guggenheim Foundation, Institute for Dental Research, New York University College of Dentistry, New York, N. Y.

Manuscript received 25 May 1957.