Diet in vitamin A research

Abstract

A properly formulated diet is an essential underpinning for all in vivo research. This chapter focuses on the use of diet in retinoid research from two perspectives: human research, in which diet is usually variable and analysis of dietary intake is paramount to interpreting the study's results, and animal (rodent) research, in which diet is imposed as a factor in the experimental design, and the diet consumed is usually monotonous. Many standard rodent diets are nonpurified and the amount of vitamin A in the diet is unknown. Moreover, it is likely to be much higher than expected from the label. By using a well-formulated purified diet with an exact amount of vitamin A, retinoid status in rodents can be closely controlled to create specific physiological conditions that represent the wide range of vitamin A status present in human populations.