Comparison of a Natural and a Purified Diet with Respect to Reproductive Ability and Caries Susceptibility

¹ Harvard School of Dental Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts

Purified Diet 2700 was not inferior to two commercially available natural diets and two nutritionally fortified natural diets with respect to the ability to support reproduction in adult rats from three caries-susceptible strains, as well as growth and development among their offspring. In some dietary and strain comparisons, Diet 2700 appeared to be slightly superior to the two commercially available natural diets in these respects.

The use of these natural diets throughout the reproductive cycle did not cause any reduction in the caries susceptibility of the offspring compared with the expected level when Diet 2700 was used. Indeed, in the Hunt-Hoppert and mutant albino strains, there was a trend toward a higher caries susceptibility among the offspring of females fed natural Diet 1 than was observed among offspring of females fed purified Diet 2700.