Further Studies on the Use of Nutritionally Adequate Diets for the Production of the Periodontal Syndrome in the Rice Rat

¹ Harvard School of Dental Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts

Four experiments were conducted to study oral and systemic interrelationships of diets with diverse ability to produce the periodontal syndrome in rice rats.

Intermittent feeding of Diet 700 with a high potential to produce the periodontal syndrome and Diet 770 with a very low potential to produce the syndrome resulted in development of the syndrome at a rate roughly proportional to the frequency with which Diet 700 was fed.

Dilution of laboratory meal, which has a low potential to produce the periodontal syndrome, with either Diet 700 or sucrose resulted in increases in the periodontal syndrome roughly proportional to the amount of Diet 700 or sucrose present in the dietary mixture.

The addition of 0.5 or 2.0 per cent sodium dihydrogen orthophosphate to Diet 700 had no influence on the development of the periodontal syndrome. The addition of 4.0 per cent sodium dihydrogen orthophosphate caused a modest reduction in calcified-tissue lesions but had no influence on the soft-tissue lesions.