i'm not sure but i heard that rats are the only animals that can produce their own Vitamine C. That makes them nutritionally valuable.
Can somebody confirm that?
Ah, here we go. So you get Vitamine C if you eat the rat. So no reason to complain.
I just heard that rat's are usually infested with worms. But on the other hand I heard worms can synthesize Vitamin B.
Can somebody confirm that?
J. Biol. Chem. Musulin et al. 129 (2): 437.
VITAMIN C SYNTHESIS AND EXCRETION BY THE RAT*
BY R. R. MUSULIN, R. H. TULLY, 3RD, HERBERT E.
LONGENECKER, AND C. G. KING
(From the Department of Chemistry, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh)
(Received for publication, April 25, 1939)
A capacity for synthesizing vitamin C is apparently common to
all the higher plants and to all the animals that have been studied
except guinea pigs, man, and the other Primates. If the silver
nitrate staining technique as used by Bourne, Giroud, LeBlond,
and associates, gives a true qualitative indication of the presence
of ascorbic acid in cells, even the simpler types of organisms such
as bacteria and yeasts also have a capacity for synthesizing the
vitamin. In no case, however, has it been possible to demonstrate
clearly the nature of the substance or substances from which the
vitamin is formed. The structural similarity between ascorbic
acid and other sugar acids points toward a carbohydrate precursor
for the vitamin, but there is still no clear cut or verified evidence
that such a relationship exists.
Ray (1) reported that sprouting seeds produced additional ascorbic
acid when glucose, fructose, and mannose were added to a
gelatin medium during germination. There was no specific,
sharp gradation in the effects of different sugars, but the highest
yields of ascorbic acid were obtained with mannose. Guha and
Ghosh (2) reported that rat liver, spleen, brain, muscle, and kidney
tissue formed ascorbic acid from mannose, in z&o, and that intravenous
injection of mannose caused a rise in the ascorbic acid
content of rat liver. Three other hexoses and two pentoses did
not produce comparable effects. A similar claim was made for
vitamin C synthesis by germinating seeds of Phaseolus mungus
* This investigation was made possible by a research grant from the
Buhl Foundation.
Contribution No. 381 from the Department of Chemistry, University
of Pittsburgh.
