Reversal of Osteoporosis in Lactating Female Rats by Tricalcium Phosphate

Abstract

PHYSIOLOGISTS as well as astronomers have difficulty in dealing with three bodies, and it is much simpler to consider only two at a time. Calcium, vitamin D and phosphate made bone growth so complicated that paediatricians neglected phosphate. But recently Widdowson et al.¹ have shown that phosphate may be a limiting factor. For 40 years, one of us has used the rat, which does not require vitamin D. In the rat, lack of phosphate stops the calcification of bone, but lack of calcium stops the formation of osteoid tissue. Albaum² showed that low calcium in the medium caused loss of ATP in bone cultures. Montorsi and Morisi³ and others have shown that ATP favours the production of osteoid. Osteoid is the characteristic of rickets, and suppression of its production by loss of ATP might change the rickets into osteoporosis. A weaned rat, placed on a low calcium diet, shows signs of rickets for a short time only. The rickets change into osteoporosis without a change of diet. To avoid this reversal, we used adults. Chossat⁴ showed that a wheat and water diet would produce osteoporosis in birds.