[Quantitative and qualitative determination of the bacterial colonization of the rat jejunum following long-term feeding with an elemental diet].

Elemental diets are increasingly used in the treatment of enteral diseases, but only limited studies have been hitherto carried out to clarify their actions on the intestinal flora. Therefore, the jejunal flora was assessed in rats fed an elemental diet or standard pellet food over a period of 60 days. In both sets of animals similar numbers of colony-forming bacteria per ml intestinal content of the aerobic and anaerobic flora were found. In addition, the individual genera did not exhibit significant differences in control and experimental animals. Thus, long-term feeding with an elemental diet does not influence the jejunal flora of rats.