Cereal-based diets(Non-purified Diet)

NIH of USA said: (Cereal Based Diet, Unrefined Diet,non-purified Diet)"These terms are recommended to designate formulations composed predominantly of unrefined plant and animal materials. These terms should replace such non-specific descriptors as 'stock diet','commercial pellets', 'pelleted diet,' 'laboratory chow',etc."

Laboratory animal diets basically fall into three categories: cereal based diet (also called chows, nonpurified diet, grain-based diet), purified diets, and chemically defined diets. Cereal based diet is a natural ingredient diet with supplementation of vitamins and minerals, and provides complete and adequate nutrition for the growth and reproduction and and lactation of an animal. This type of diet is relatively inexpensive.

However, there are limitations to this type. An important point to remember is that the plant materials in cereal diets contain many compounds (termed phytochemicals) other than nutrients, some of which have currently been proven to affect physiological functions of laboratory animal. Typically, it has been known that the phytoestrogens (a subclass of phytochemicals) from the type of cereal based diet can bind to estrogen receptors in the animal and have either pro- or anti-estrogenic effects.

Our company has modified the NIH open formula of cereal diets for deceasing the phytochemicals contents to a greater degree, particularly without the phytoestrogens, with the similar nutrient contents and same nutritional levels. Of course, we also provide the cereal diet with complete NIH open formula if our customer's request or requirement.

In particular, a standard formula, so called NTP-2000, for toxicology and carcinogenesis studies comes from the NTP (the National Toxicology Program) in American. The establishment of NTP-2000 actually proves the limitations of NIH-07 open formula for rats and mouse.

Please note that the capacity of modifications in cereal diet for experimental diets is limited because of its main materials as grain or cereal based