Lifetime toxicity/carcinogenicity study of FD & C Red No. 40 (allura red) in Sprague-Dawley rats

FD & C Red No. 40 was fed to Charles River CD (Sprague-Dawley) rats as a dietary admixture in a lifetime toxicity/carcinogenicity study. The study included a phase during which the colouring was administered to parental rats (30 of each sex per group) at concentrations of 0.0, 0.37, 1.39 and 5.19%, throughout the mating, gestation and lactation periods. The concurrent control group received the basal diet. After random selection of the first-generation rats, the lifetime phase was initiated using the same dietary concentrations with 50 rats of each sex per group. The maximum durations of exposure to the colouring were 118 and 121 for males and females, respectively. No compound-related adverse effects were observed, except for a reduction in body weight in high-dose females at the end of the study. The no-adverse-effect levels in this study were 5.19% (2829 mg/kg/day) for male rats, and 1.39% (901 mg/kg/day) for female rats.