[The effect of vitamin C and zinc on the copper-induced increase of cadmium residues in swine].

In commercial pig fattening, copper is added to the feed in amounts that greatly exceed the requirements of the animals. On the one hand, this improves weight gain, but on the other, as we were able to recently prove, the retention of the heavy metal cadmium rises in the kidney, in the liver and in muscle. In a feeding experiment with female and male castrated piglets, we tried to counter the copper-induced rise in cadmium (175 mg Cu/kg feed) by adding zinc or vitamin C to the diet. While addition of 100 or 200 mg zinc per kg of diet had no influence, the addition of 1000 mg vitamin C reduced the elevated cadmium values in the kidneys and livers to values only determined with a low copper supplementation of 35 mg copper per kg of feed. This positive vitamin C effect not only occurs in cases of high copper supplementation (175 mg Cu/kg feed); when the pigs were given only 35 mg copper per kg of feed, vitamin C also reduced the cadmium content in the organs by 35 to 40%. This indicates that vitamin C improves the quality of food gained from animals for human consumption in both conditions.