Millet (Cattail and Foxtail) as the Cariogenic Component of Experimental Rat Diets

¹ National Institute of Dental Research, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland

An inadequate diet composed essentially of a cereal food, i.e., millet, with and without the presence of 18 per cent cerelose (commercial glucose) in the diet, was fed to white rats for approximately 60 days. Seventy-five to 100 per cent of the rats developed relatively severe dental caries, most generally on the buccal surfaces of lower molar teeth. The cause of this cariogenicity was not ascertained.

The pronounced lysine inadequacy of millet was demonstrated. Nonetheless, a supplement of 2 per cent lysine did not inhibit the dental caries as produced by this millet-base diet which apparently was inadequate in other respects besides lysine.

Although not based on a control versus test-group comparison, 2.0 per cent CaHPO₄ apparently had no preventive effect on the cariogenicity of this millet diet.