It was previously reported that in both riboflavin supplemental and suboptimal, the most amounts of riboflavin in feces and the largest body weight gain were found in the sucrose plus D-sorbitol diet group than in the sucrose group and in the dextrin group.
However, as thiamine supplementation was limited in previous experiment, a remarkable increase of body weight in the sorbitol supplemented group would riot only be due to the effect of riboflavin synthesized in intestine, but also to the effect of thiamine synthesized by intestinal bacteria.
So, in the present investigation, thiamine was supplied sufficiently to removing the effect of synthesized thiamine.
Moreover, to confirm the mechanism of vitamin sparing action proposed by Morgan et al., the tail cup method designed to prevent the coprophagy by Barnes et al. was examined.
Growing rats of approximately 70 grams body weight were divided into two groups. One was riboflavin supplemented group, and the other was riboflavin deficient group.
Each group was divided into three groups. The first was control, the second and the third were supplemented with D-sorbitol. The third was set up polyvinyl tail cup.
As shown in Fig. 2 and Table 3, a remarkable increase of body weight was obtained by supplementing D-sorbitol to riboflavin deficient sucrose diet.
From the results of these experiments, it was confirmed that D-sorbitol has the riboflavin sparing action in rats. However, tail cup method has not proved ideal. The cups were often taken out from the tail and the tail was easily injured, and also the cups must have been frequently set up and taken out. So, it is very unwieldy and impractical.
It appeared that, in the tail cups group, feed intakes and body weight gains may have been decreased by those cause.
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