Dietas padrão utilizadas em experimentação animal : uma análise comparativa.

Abstract

Many diets of different compositions are available for use in animal experiments and have been used as standard, but they may induce adverse metabolic effects, compromising the comparison between the results of several studies. The literature records many reports of changes related to the use of these diets, however it lacks studies that compare metabolic effects of consumption of the different standard diets in animal experiments. Accordingly, the objective of this dissertation was to evaluate the metabolic effects of the consumption of diets considered standard widely used in animal research, being presented in the form of two articles: a review of the literature that gathers evidence yet little discussed by the scientific community on the feeding of laboratory animals; the second article refers to an experimental study with rats newly weaned, who received two types of diets: a commercial cereal-based, Nuvilab®, and another purified proposal by the American Institute of Nutrition, the AIN-93. Under the experimental conditions established, coefficients of protein and feeding efficiency presented significantly higher in group AIN-93 than in group Nuvilab®. The AIN-93 showed significantly higher lipid and protein digestibility than Nuvilab®. The different diets did not cause weight difference evolution of animals and histological analysis to the optical microscope of the kidneys, heart, spleen, stomach and small intestine showed no changes in the structures of these bodies, despite the different treatments. Animals fed the AIN-93 diet, regardless of age, had hepatic steatosis in frequency significantly higher than the animals that received the commercial Nuvilab®. The different diets did not cause influence on the absolute and relative weights of organs of animals, except for the absolute weight of the liver among younger animals and relative weight of the intestine among older animals. There was no influence of different diets on biochemical parameters evaluated, and the differences detected possibly resulting from the interaction between age and length of exposure of animals to diets. The markers of damage of kidney and liver function were similar and serum creatinine varied according to age. It was shown that both diets, AIN-93 and Nuvilab ®, are able to promote the growth of rats for a period of study considered subchronic. However, the occurrence of hepatic steatosis in animals fed the AIN-93 diet in pellets, reinforces the importance of tracking the standard protocols of experimentation and is indicative of nutritional inadequacies by imposing the need for further investigations to clarify which components or characteristics of this diet, widely used in animal experiments, may have contributed to this result. For instance, it is suggested that diets in the form of flour are used preferably those pellets, particularly on protocols to investigate metabolic effects.