Effects of feeding an elemental diet during abdominal irradiation.

Rats fed with normal laboratory feed or elemental diet 3200-BD (Mead Johnson) were administered fractions of 240 rd (-60Co gamma-radiation) abdominally. Consumption of food and its nutrition efficiency were the parameters studied. Anorexia occurred rapidly following only one fraction of 240 rd and was unaffected by the feeding of the diet. Animals fed the latter, however, recovered normal appetite much faster upon completion of abdominal irradiation than those fed normally. While nutritional efficiency of the diet was smaller than that of normal feed with the controls, the opposite was obtained with irradiated animals.