NASAL SINUSITIS PRODUCED BY DIETS DEFICIENT IN FAT-SOLUBLE A VITAMIN

Abstract

In studying the effects on rats of diets low in the fat-soluble vitamin (vitamin A 1 ), it has been observed that these animals frequently suffer from what appears to be a nutritive disaster, manifested by stationary weight, or sudden loss in weight and death before the appearance of the characteristic eye infection, xerophthalmia. Similar results have been observed by a number of other workers. For example, Emmett 2 found that of 122 rats fed low fat-soluble A diets, 98.2 per cent, developed xerophthalmia, while out of 136 animals on vitamin A free diets in Osborne and Mendel's 3 group, only sixty-nine developed the disease. Walker, 4 who also observed that the lack of the fat-soluble A vitamin produced xerophthalmia in a variable percentage of experimental animals, suggests that hereditary predisposition may explain the dissimilar results obtained by the different investigators. With the exception of the specific pathologic changes in the