28 MASS. EXPERIAIENT STATION BULLETIN 374 



The results are shown in Chart 2. Only animals that gained weight 

 during the experiment are represented in the chart, since it was felt that 

 animals which had lost weight would not give representative results. 

 Loss of weight was caused by refusal of the animals to eat the ration. 

 Few of them ate the kelp satisfactorily, and the few that did gain on the 

 kelp ration failed to show the protective action against cholesterol injury 

 that had been previously demonstrated. There was some evidence that 

 the grain was eaten and the kelp left in the feed cups. The striking find- 

 ings in this series of tests were the extremely high blood cholesterol and 

 the severe aortic injury in rabbits fed the kelp-ash supplement, and the 

 apparent protection against injury among the rabbits given the salt mix- 

 ture. The salt mixture did not seem to exert a marked influence on the 

 blood-cholesterol level; but in view of previous findings, that potassium 

 iodide tended to increase the cholesterol content of the blood, the fact 

 that the same compound fed in the synthetic salt mixture failed to have 

 the same effect is worthy of note. 



Liver-Cholesterol Determinations 



During all of the experiments it was noted that the livers of all rabbits 

 fed cholesterol were heavily infiltrated with fat. The liver weights re- 

 ported for one series showed marked increase in size, with evidence that 

 kelp gave some protection against fatty degeneration. The question 

 arose as to whether this was a problem of fat or of cholesterol metabolism. 

 In an attempt to answer this question, cholesterol determinations were 

 made on the livers of animals in the last series of experiments. Deter- 

 minations were made by a modification of the method of Morrow and 

 Sandstrom. From the study of weights and cholesterol contents, it is 

 apparent that both kelp and the mineral supplement tended to restrict 

 damage and lipoid deposits in the livers due to cholesterol. The color 

 and weight of the livers, as well as lessened changes, were evidence of the 

 effect of cholesterol when mineral supplements were fed, but the actual 

 figures for cholesterol content, shown in Table 2, are even more striking. 



Table 1. — The Effect of Cholesterol and Other Ration Supplements 

 Upon Liver Weight 

 (Litters G, H, I, J) 



Supplement in Number Liver Liver weight 



Total Ration of Weight Percent of 



Consumed Rabbits Grams Body Weight 



None 6 97 2.8 



Cholesterol (0.5%) 8 152 4.6 



Cholesterol plus kelp (17%) 10 117 3.6 



