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Ameliorating Effect of Dietary Fiber on Toxicities of Chemicals Added to a Diet in the Rat¹

Laboratory of Nutritional Biochemistry, Department of Agricultural Chemistry, Nagoya University, Chikusa, Nagoya, 464 Japan

The adverse effects of polyethyleneglycol 4000 (PEG), Tween 20 or amaranth added to a 20% casein diet on gastrointestinal functions, food consumption and growth of rats, and the ameliorating effects of the concurrent feeding of dietary fibers were studied. The sources of dietary fibers used were the roots of edible burdock and soybean. These fibers were referred to as GDF and Okara, respectively. An addition of PEG, Tween 20 or amaranth to the diet induced diarrhea, a remarkable reduction of gain in the body weight and a decrease in the food consumption. The weights of the intestinal segment and its mucosa, and intestinal sucrase activity per length of the small intestine of rats fed these diets were significantly lower than those of rats fed the basal diet. The adverse effects of these diets were completely prevented by the concurrent feeding of GDF and Okara. In these experiments, the segmental activities of intestinal alkaline phosphatase as well as those of intestinal sucrase were decreased by the addition of PEG, Tween 20 or amaranth to the basal diet. Regardless of the amount of the basal diet consumed, however, segmental sucrase activities stayed at a constant level, whereas segmental alkaline phosphatase activities decreased with reduction in the food consumption. The reduction in segmental sucrase activities that occurred due to addition of these chemicals to the basal diet may result from exfoliation of the brush border membrane caused by these chemicals and may result in the malabsorption of dietary nutrients and water in the small intestine.

KEY WORDS: • dietary fiber • polyethyleneglycol • Tween 20 • amaranth • sucrase • alkaline phosphatase • brush border membrane • small intestine • diarrhea

¹ This study was supported in part by a grant from the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture of Japan.

Manuscript received 30 May 1979.