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Prevention of "Meat Anemia" in Mice by Copper and Calcium¹

Laboratory of Nutrition, Department of Biochemistry, Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School, Jerusalem, Israel

1. Young mice, when fed for 6 weeks a diet of muscle meat, developed severe anemia.

2. The anemia could be prevented by supplementing the meat with 1 mg of copper (as CuSO₄) per kg. Smaller amounts were less effective.

3. Only when the copper content of the liver reached 4 to 6 mg/kg was anemia prevented in mice fed a meat diet. On the other hand, mice maintained with a milk diet that provides amounts of copper similar to those in meat did not develop anemia in 6 weeks, and after that period their livers contained less than 4 mg of copper/kg.

4. Various calcium salts (carbonate, chloride, phosphate, lactate, gluconate) were incorporated into the meat diet. Supplements of 2.25 gm of calcium/kg of meat prevented the anemia. Calcium phosphate was the most efficient followed by carbonate and chloride, whereas lactate and gluconate were less effective. Strontium chloride exhibited also a marked potency in preventing the anemia, whereas magnesium chloride was almost ineffective.

5. When the meat diet was supplemented with calcium carbonate and with different amounts of copper, insignificantly more copper was found in the livers of mice in comparison with that in the livers of mice maintained with a similar diet without the addition of calcium. It appears that calcium does not act by improving absorption of the small amounts of copper present in meat or of the larger amounts added to meat.

Manuscript received 23 July 1962.