The nutritional effects of feeding either sucrose or starch as components of a high carbohydrate low protein diet were studied and the effects of a combined oral contraceptive observed. Animals receiving the contraceptive had a greater weight loss. An inverse relationship between serum albumin and γ-globulin was demonstrated, but did not hold for rats on the sucrose diet receiving the ‘pill’. A marked increase in the liver lipid concentration was shown for the group receiving sucrose and the