Failure of Vitamin Supplementation to Alter the Fatty Liver Syndrome Caused by Aflatoxin

A mixture of choline, inositol, vitamin B12, and vitamin E has been reported to cure the fatty liver syndrome of laying hens, but the inability to reproduce this syndrome in the laboratory has prevented controlled evaluation of the proposed cure. Since dietary aflatoxin causes reproducibly in the laboratory a fatty liver syndrome, an experiment was designed to establish whether the vitamin mixture was effective in treating the syndrome caused by aflatoxin. Hens selected for similar age, weight, and egg production were used in a 2×2 factorial experiment for the presence and absence of the added dietary vitamins and 10 μg./g.aflatoxin. After three weeks the aflatoxin caused a significant increase in liver size, liver total lipid, and percent of egg as shell and a decrease in egg roduction while the added vitamins were without effect on these parameters. Half of the birds which had received aflatoxin were placed on the control diet while the other half were fed the control diet supplemented with the vitamin mixture. In three weeks, all parameters returned to control values and the added vitamins had no significant effect on the recovery. These results suggest that the proposed vitamin mixture is not effective in altering the development or enhancing the recovery from the fatty liver syndrome caused by aflatoxin.