Nutritional considerations in designing animal models of metal toxicity in man.

In recent years, exposure of man to increasing amounts of metals has occurred rather generally from industrial contamination and variably from intake of dietary mineral supplements. Adverse effects of individual metals can be markedly altered by dietary levels of other essential and nonessential inorganic elements, essential organic nutrients and other nonessential dietary components. Experimental diets for establishing baseline responses to excess elements should be formulated to meet the animal's requirements only. These reference diets can then be modified to mimic man's average dietary intake as well as meal patterns. Improved animal models should provide better data for assessing hazards of excess metal intake by man.