Growth, reproduction, mortality, and pathologic changes in rats fed gamma-irradiated potatoes

Abstract

For two years a colony of albino rats was fed diets one-third of which consisted of potatoes which received, for sprout-inhibition purposes, a dose of up to 40 kilorads of irradiation from reactor fuel elements. There were no effects of the irradiation treatment on growth, reproductive performances through four generations, hematology, nor on pathologic changes of these rats. The higher mortality of first-generation males and second-generation females fed the diets containing irradiated potatoes is not believed to be attributable to the irradiation treatment per se. Irradiation was not a factor in the unusually high incidence of a necrotizing arteritis resembling "peri-arteritis nodosa" in the first- and second-generation animals.