Interaction of Dietary Aflatoxin With Some Vitamin Deficiencies

Abstract

Feeding trials indicated that supplementing a diet adequate in vitamins with a four-fold excess of the National Research Council recommendations for vitamins afforded no protection against the growth inhibitory effect of aflatoxin in chickens. On the other hand, when the combined effects of dietary aflatoxin and vitamin deficiencies were studied the vitamin deficiencies investigated could be divided into three classes. Diets deficient in riboflavin or vitamin D3 made chickens sensitive to levels of aflatoxin normally too small to influence their growth rate. In a diet adequate in vitamin D3, aflatoxin reduced the serum calcium level by 20 percent. The second class of vitamin deficiencies with regard to aflatoxin contained vitamin K3 and vitamin E whose dietary status had no influence on aflatoxicosis as measured by growth rate. The third class was represented by thiamine. A thiamine deficiency had a protective effect against the growth inhibitory effect of dietary aflatoxin. This unexpected protective effect can be rationalized on the basis that aflatoxin inhibits transport of fat from the liver while a thiamine deficiency stimulates fatty acid oxidation.