Attempts to relate the selenium content of heat-treated milks with their nutritive properties

Abstract

SummaryFink (1954) and Fink & Schlie (1955a) fed rats on a diet intentionally marginal in vitamin E and the sulphur-amino acids, in which dried milk supplied the protein (10%). They were able to relate the development of fatal liver necrosis in rats to heat damage of dried milks. Using their method, no liver necrosis developed in our rats with 2 spray-dried skim-milks, evaporated milk and milk subjected to ultrahigh temperature treatment, with or without subsequent in-bottle sterilization. With a roller-dried skim-milk sent to us from Germany by Fink and found by him to be of ‘middle degree necrogenity’, no liver necrosis occurred in hooded or albino rats bred in our laboratory, but the lesion developed in albino rats from an outside source. It was found that this milk had a lower selenium content than 2 British spray-dried milks. With rats given a necrogenic diet, differences were observed between and within strains in their susceptibility to liver necrosis and in their ability to utilize dietary selenium.