The author designed and carried out this study to compare the effects of four different dietary calcium on body growth and skeletal development in albino rats.
Fourty female rats aged 30-40 days were devided into four groups, ten rats each. The rats had been maintained with the four different diets, sugar-casein diet, lobe leafed undaria diet, skim milk diet and small sardine diet, containing equal amount of calcium (0.5%), over a period of 15 weeks.
The findings of this study presented in two sections as follows, a) the evaluation of biological value of proteins from four different dietary sources in terms of body weight gains, urinary nitrogen and creatinine excretion, and final organ weights, and b) the determination of the amount of the retained and utilized calcium from four different dietary sources in terms of total skeletal weight, tibia and femur length, and the amount of blood and bone calcium.
The undaria group tended to remain the lightest in the body weight among four groups throughout the experimental period.
There was no significant differences in retained body nitrogen among three groups, except the sardine group, at the fifth week of experiment, From this point on, the undaria group retained less nitrogen in the body and excreted more urinary creatinine than three other experimental groups. The shrinkage of internal organ, such as spleen, was observed in the undaria group.
On the contrary, the weight of adrenals in the undaria group was the heaviest and the sugar-casein group the lightest,
With respect to the amount of blood and bone calcium there were no statistically significant differences among four experimental groups,