An Evaluation of the Antipyrine Dilution Technique for the Determination of Total Body Water in Ruminants1

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The relationships among the major chemical components of the animal body permit the resolution of body composition if either the water or the fat content can be determined. The determination of total body water by the antipyrine dilution technique seemed to have sufficient merit to warrant a large scale evaluation of this procedure by direct application in nutritional investigations. Over 110 individual attempts to determine total body water in 57 beef cattle were made. Duplicate determinations of body water were made three months apart in 36 steers. Triplicate determinations were made in 10 bulls at intervals of one and two months. The individual results in most instances where duplicate or triplicate determinations of total body water can be compared for a single animal show more variation than can be considered physiologically normal for the conditions of the trial. There are 45 direct comparisons between body fat calculated from antipyrine body water and from specific gravity methods. The correlation coefficients between these two measures of body fat were not significant. Sheep were used in a series of trials to obtain some information concerning the effect of gastrointestinal tract contents on the total body water of the ruminant as estimated with antipyrine. The difference in antipyrine space obtained from the same animal after varying periods of water and food deprivation was considerable. Rumen samples taken by stomach tube during one of the trials found the concentration of antipyrine in the rumen water as a percent of the concentration of antipyrine in the serum water varying from 70 (2.5 hours post-injection) to as much as 180 (5.0 hours post-injection). The results of these trials are interpreted as indicating that the antipyrine dilution technique as utilized in this investigation gave values for total body water which were too variable to be successfully employed in resolving the body composition of the ruminant. Copyright © . .

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: