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The selenium requirement of the puppy
Author(s) -
Wedekind K. J.,
Yu S.,
Combs G. F.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
journal of animal physiology and animal nutrition
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.651
H-Index - 56
eISSN - 1439-0396
pISSN - 0931-2439
DOI - 10.1111/j.1439-0396.2004.00489.x
Subject(s) - puppy , selenium , zoology , selenium deficiency , endocrinology , glutathione peroxidase , triiodothyronine , medicine , randomized block design , beagle , litter , chemistry , biology , thyroid , superoxide dismutase , ecology , oxidative stress , organic chemistry , horticulture , agronomy
Summary Current selenium (Se) recommendations for the puppy are based on extrapolation from other species (0.11 mg Se/kg diet). The purpose of this study was to experimentally determine the Se requirement in puppies. Thirty beagle puppies (average = 8.8 weeks old) were utilized in a randomized complete block design with age, litter and gender used as blocking criteria. Puppies were fed a low Se (0.04 mg Se/kg diet) torula yeast‐based diet for 14 days (pre‐test period) after which this same diet was supplemented with five levels of Na 2 SeO 3 for 21 days (experimental period) to construct a response curve (0, 0.13, 0.26, 0.39 or 0.52 mg Se/kg diet). Response variables included Se concentrations and Se‐dependent glutathione peroxidase activities (GSHpx) in serum as well as serum total triiodothyronine (TT 3 ), serum total thyroxine (TT 4 ) and serum free T 4 (FT 4 ). No significant changes in food intake and body weight gain occurred, and no clinical signs of Se deficiency were observed. A breakpoint for serum GSHpx could not be determined in our study due to analytical difficulties. A broken‐line, two‐slope response in serum Se occurred with a breakpoint at 0.17 mg Se/kg diet. When Se from the basal diet was added to this estimate, the breakpoint for serum Se equated to 0.21 mg Se/kg diet. TT 3 increased linearly with increasing Se intake, whereas TT 4 was unchanged. However, the ratio of TT 4 : TT 3 decreased linearly in response to supplemental Se. In summary, although we estimated the selenium requirement for the puppy based on serum Se, our 0.21 mg Se/kg diet estimate is higher than that seen for adult dogs, kittens, rats or poultry (0.13, 0.15, 0.15 and 0.15 mg Se/kg diet respectively). This difference may be due to the fact that GSHpx was used as the biomarker of Se status.