ABSTRACT
Scandinavian Society for the Study of Diabetes
Tenth annual meeting, Helsinki, May 9-11, 1974
Effects of Dietary Inorganic Phosphate on the Course of Alloxan Diabetes in Rats.
Harald O.R. Bergengren and Erik Hägg.
Department of Pathology, University of Umeå, S-901 87 Umeå 6, Sweden.
Rats made diabetic by a single intravenous injection of alloxan under kidney protection remain diabetic without exogenous insulin administration for at least 15 months when fed conventional rat pellets and tap water ad.libitum. These pellets contain less than 1.0 % of phosphor (probably bound to organic compounds).
When 3-4 g of a mixture of inorganic phosphates were included per 100 g of pellet dough without any other change in the composition or the appearance of the food and the tap water, striking effects were observed within 1-2 days in rats with brief (1 week) diabetes duration. The blood glucose level was decreased, the polyuria disappeared, and only traces of glucosuria persisted. The rats consumed the food with good appetite and their body weight increase approached that of non-diabetic untreated control rats, whereas the alloxan-diebetic controls showed a smaller weight increase. When the experiments were repeated in rats with long (more than 1 month) diabetes duration, less dramatic but still clearly significant effects were observed.
So far, no structural differences have been found in the pancreatic islets between the experimental rats and the diabetic controls that would indicate an increased regeneration of β-cells as an explanation of the effects. Neither have any lesions in the kidneys been observed.
It is concluced that inorganic phosphate plays an important role for the evolution of alloxan diabetes in rats.
Leg. vet. Harald 0. R. Bergengren
Institute of Pathology, University of Umeå
S-901 87 Umeå 6, Sweden
