Studies on nickel metabolism: interaction with other mineral elements.

Nickel toxicity was studied in young chicks fed a semi-purified diet. Dietary nickel concentrations of 300 mg/kg and higher resulted in significant reduction in growth rate. Mortality and anemia were observed in chicks receiving 1100 mg/kg nickel. Dietary nickel content of 300 mg/kg resulted in a significant increase in kidney nickel content while higher dietary levels were required to affect the nickel content of other body tissues. Supplementation of nickel toxic diets (500 mg/kg) with 100 mg/kg of cobalt, iron, copper, and zinc did not alleviate the symptoms of nickel toxicity or consistently affect tissue nickel accumulation. The addition of cobalt resulted in a further depression in growth rate when added to the nickel toxic diet. However, subsequent studies showed that this was due to the toxicity of cobalt and no evidence was found for an interaction between these two elements. The lack of interaction of nickel with copper, iron, and zinc is in contrast to the results observed by other investigators at low dietary concentrations of nickel.