The effect of pectin on copper bioavalilability was examined in copper deficient rats. Male weanling, 21 day old Sprague Dawley rats were fed either the control diet (diet 1, 6 mg Cu/Kg diet) or the deficient diet ($<$0.5 mg Cu/Kg diet). After 4 weeks of depletion, the rats were divided into groups of 6 rats each. One control and one depleted group were sacrificed to determine baseline levels. The remaining groups were repleted for 5 days by feeding the following diets ad libitum: Control diet 1; diet 1 with 8% pectin (4 preparations differing in molecular weight (MW), and degree of esterification (DE)). Four groups of rats were pair fed to the pectin groups with control diet 1. Serum ceruloplasmin oxidase, serum copper, liver copper and liver Cu, Zn superoxide dismutase were used as indicators of copper bioavailability. Results showed that the biochemical parameters had normalized and there were no significant differences in the levels between the experimental groups. Liver copper concentration was lowest in the group repleted with the diet containing pectin with LowMW:HighDE, suggesting that this pectin may have an effect on copper bioavailability. It therefore became apparent that to detect differences between dietary treatments, it was imperative to prevent complete recovery from copper deficiency. The aim of the second in vivo study was to replete copper deficient rats with diets containing 3 mg Cu/Kg diet in order to reveal differences, if any, between the experimental groups. Copper deficient rats were repleted for 5 days with either control diet 1, control diet 2 (3 mg Cu/Kg diet); or diet 2 with 8% pectin (2 HighDE pectin preparations differing in molecular weights). Two groups of rats were pair fed to the pectin groups with control diet 2. The results of this study showed that the parameters used as indices of copper bioavailability had not normalized and that there were no differences between the experimental groups. Therefore, one can conclude that pectin does not have an effect on copper bioavailability.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UMASS/oai:scholarworks.umass.edu:dissertations-7607 |
| Date | 01 January 1996 |
| Creators | Gupte, Swati V |
| Publisher | ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst |
| Source Sets | University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest |
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