Experimental rickets : the effect of cereals and their interaction with other factors of diet and environment in producing rickets / by Edward Mellanby.

  • Edward Mellanby
Date:
1925
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Experimental rickets : the effect of cereals and their interaction with other factors of diet and environment in producing rickets / by Edward Mellanby. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    I. INTRODUCTION. Investigations carried out during recent years on the subject of diet have not only brought to light the importance of qualitj^ of the food but have also emphasized the necessity of balance among some of the essential constituents. This need of balance of foodstuffs depends upon the interaction of different dietetic factors, which is of such a nature that alteration in the amount of one often necessi¬ tates change in another before normal development and function can result. The present publication deals with one aspect of this problem, namely, the interaction of food factors on bone calcifica¬ tion. Probably in no physiological activity so far studied do action and reaction of dietetic elements stand out more prominently than in the growth and hardening of bone. It might be thought that a physiological process whose outcome was the deposition of calcium phosphate in growing bone would be relatively simple, and would be influenced to a large extent, or even solely, by the amounts of calcium and phosphorus in the diet. In previous publications [1 a, b, c, cl], however, I have shown that this is not the case, but that, among other dietetic factors which in¬ fluence the process, a calcifying vitamin, the anti-rachitic factor, plays a prominent part, and this has been amply confirmed by others. (Korenchevsky [23 a], McCollum, Simmonds, Shipley and Park [4 c.]) Another important food constituent influencing bone calcification, but in an opposite sense to the anti-rachitic vitamin, is found in cereal. (E. Mellanby, [1 cl, e.f, g.]) Cereals have long formed the major part of the diet of man. From a physiological standpoint they have been considered almost entirely as sources of energy, of carbohydrate and of protein, and on this basis their dietetic value has been appraised. It is true*that the presence of vitamin B in natural cereals, and its loss in the manufacture of many products, is an important fact to be reckoned with in any consideration of the relative nutritional value of different preparations of a cereal. For instance, the relative dietetic value of polished and unpolished, rice centres round the vitamin B content of these foods. Ihese observations have not, however, led to the belief that there are important differences in food value among the natural cereals themselves, except such as can be explained in terms of their known physiological constituents. The experimental work described here demonstrates that various common cereals have different effects on the growing animal, and that these differences cannot yet be explained on the basis of their known constituents. It has long been recognized that rickets often develops in children whose diets contain much carbohydrate, and many clinicians, among whom may be mentioned Cheadle [2]. have taught that carbohydrate and carbohydrate-containing foods are important aetiological factors m this disease. Sometimes the carbohydrate of cereal in the form of starch was blamed, while at other times the simpler polysaccharides