ABSTRACT
Diet, as a vehicle for the delivery of adequate nutrition to the experimental animal, is very important. In experimental animal studies where the mechanism of action of a particular nutrient is to be resolved, knowledge of the precise composition of the diet for the animal model is of paramount importance. The carbohydrate sources for the new diets are cornstarch, dextrinized cornstarch, which contains from 90 to 94% tetrasaccharides, and sucrose. Starch was chosen to replace the sucrose originally used in the AIN-76A diet because high dietary sucrose, compared with other carbohydrates, can cause several complications in rodents. Purified diets contain free copper and iron and oxidizing components could make them more prone to oxidation than a natural ingredient-based diet where these metals are organically bound. Zinc is an important trace element that is absolutely required for growth, reproduction, and maintenance of laboratory rodents. Copper is an important trace element that is absolutely required for numerous metabolic processes in laboratory rodents.
