Module 6: Nutrition

Question 1

Describe different types of diets for laboratory animals .

Answer 1

• Natural ingredients diet/chow
• Purified diets

Question 2

Describe how you would use specfic diets for specific studies, how you would order them, and how you would store them.

Answer 2

• choose between natural ingredient diets, purified diets, or specialized diets tailored for specific research purposes (e.g., high-fat or low-protein diets).
• store in a cool, dry & well-ventilated area away from direct sunlight & contaminants.
• label each diet with the diet type, expiration date, batch number & any instructions
• Regularly assess the quality and consistency of the diets throughout the study

Question 3

Describe the chow diet.

Answer 3

Can be:
- Whole grains (corn, barley, wheat)
- Mill by-products (bran)
- High protein meals (soybeans, fish, casein)
- Mineral sources (bone meal)

Pros:
- cheap
- palatable (animals like it)
- nutritious

Cons:
- variation between batches (of the same diet from the same producer)
- single components are non-removable
- contains uncontrolled biologically active compounds
- contamination risk (e.g., from birds (salmonella))

Can be very different from country to country
- wheat/barley contains gluten, corn does not: if you feed a NOD mouse a gluten containing diet, the risk of diabetes is very much higher than if the diet is gluten free

Different from life stage to life stage (e.g., breeding: pregnant and lactating mice the protein content is 27 %, but only 24 % in maintenance diet)

Question 4

Describe the purified diets.

Answer 4

Based upon synthetic compounds such as:
- protein (casein, amino acids)
- carbohydrate (sucrose, starch)
- fiber (cellulose)
- fat (corn oil)
- various mineral and vitamin mixtures

Pros:
- standardized
- single components removable (e.g., to make nutrient deficient diets (which you need a license for))

Cons:
- aversive (animals do not like as much)
- expensive
- may lack biologically active compounds of importance for the model