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Effects of starvation in rats with elevated DDT and dieldrin tissue levels

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Summary

Weanling, adult and old Osborne-Mendel strain rats were fed for 4 weeks diets supplemented with 50 ppm DDT, 7.5 ppm aldrin, or a combination of 50 ppm DDT plus 7.5 ppm aldrin. They were subsequently starved for 6 days, with free access to water. This period of starvation resulted in marked loss of body weight, marked loss of total body lipids, decreased liver-to-body-weight ratio, and a decreased total body-lipid-to-body-weight ratio.

As a result of severe starvation, “total DDT” (simple summation of DDT, DDE and DDD) and dieldrin concentrations decreased in the blood of male and female rats of all ages, regardless of the pesticide supplement fed before starvation, but only in weanling male and female rats were reductions marked and statistically significant.

There was no distinct pattern to the effects of starvation on the concentration and retention of pesticides in the brain and kidney of male and female rats of all ages.

In general, in all rats, except for adult and old females, starvation induced a decrease in both the concentration and the total quantity of “total DDT” and dieldrin in the liver. In the two groups of females, the opposite occurred. Particularly in male rats, there was a marked conversion of DDT to DDD in the liver as a result of starvation.

The total quantity of pesticides (DDT, DDE, DDD, dieldrin) in the total body decreased during the period of severe starvation, regardless of sex, age, or the pesticide supplement fed before starvation. On the whole, the effects were most marked in weanlings and least marked in old rats.

In females of all ages, starvation induced from a moderate to a marked increase in the concentrations of DDT, its metabolites, and dieldrin in the abdominal fat. In male rats, “total DDT” increased, but dieldrin decreased in the abdominal fat. With the exception of weanling male rats, starvation increased hepatic microsomal enzyme activity for the substrates tested: EPN, p-nitroanisole and methyl orange.

Feeding of the DDT and/or aldrin supplement for 4 weeks to male and female weanling rats resulted in a significant increase in growth rate above that of weanling rats fed the control diet.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research and Teaching Center of Toxicology, Department of Pharmacology, University of Miami, School of Medicine, P.O. Box 8216, 33124, Coral Gables, Florida, USA

    Wm. B. Deichmann, W. E. MacDonald, D. A. Cubit & A. G. Beasley

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  1. Wm. B. Deichmann
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  2. W. E. MacDonald
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  3. D. A. Cubit
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  4. A. G. Beasley
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Additional information

This investigation was supported by U.S. Public Health Service Grant No. 5 P01 ES00052, 5–7.

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Deichmann, W.B., MacDonald, W.E., Cubit, D.A. et al. Effects of starvation in rats with elevated DDT and dieldrin tissue levels. Int. Arch. Arbeitsmed 29, 233–252 (1972). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00539251

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00539251

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