Effect of dietary mineral composition on nutritional equivalency of amino acid mixtures and casein in rats.

The effect of dietary mineral composition on the quality of amino acid mixtures and intact casein was examined in growing rats fed for 28 days under "conventional" conditions. When 25% demineralized casein (DC) was the sole dietary protein source, the widely-used mineral mixture by Harper (MMH) supported growth poorly (3.2 g/day), but a new formula mineral mixture (MM2) containing sufficient amounts of zinc gave a growth rate of over 8 g/day for 21 days. With a crude casein (CC) diet, rats grew at the same rate regardless of mineral mixtures. The growth-supporting power of amino acid mixtures, one of which simulated casein (AA-A) and another patterned after Rogers and Harper to give maximal growth of rats (AA-B), was compared with those of DC and CC with addition of MMH or MM2. When the protein source was DC, AA-A or AA-B, MM2 significantly improved the growth over that of rats fed MMH. The growth-stimulating effect of MM2 was greater when added to DC diet than when added to AA-A diet. When MM2 was added to AA-B diet, the growth rate greatly increased and reached that of rats fed DC diet containing MM2 (over 8 g/day), showing a nutritional equivalency between the amino acid mixture and intact protein. Drawbacks inherent in MMH did not appear with CC diet, because CC contained considerable amounts of zinc. When a highly purified amino acid-sucrose diet is used, dietary minerals become most limiting for growth even under conventional conditions. Thus, the previous conflicting results concerning nutritional equivalency of amino acid mixtures and protein can be explained by inadequate mineral sources.