Nutritional Deficiencies in Mice Caused by Stress Agents

Feeding to growing mice of a low fat diet complete with regard to all known dietary essentials results in what is regarded as normal growth. The addition to this diet, however, of such metabolic stresses as are brought about by the intestinal bacteriostatic agents, succinylsulfathiazole, streptomycin or atabrine, or such materials as thyroid or triacetin, causes a retardation of growth. This growth retardation can be prevented if to the stress-containing basal diet are added fat, fatty acids, or such low fat materials as a partially defatted cottonseed meal or a water-extracted liver residue. It has been concluded tentatively that the stresses employed interfere with the synthesis of long chain fatty acids by the organism. It is further suggested that cottonseed and liver contain a factor, or factors, essential for the synthesis of fat by the animal.