A New Polysaccharide, Detarium microcarpium From Traditional Nigerian Plant Food: Its Physiological Effects On Rats

Abstract

Detarium microcarpium is a legumnous plant food used traditionally among the Ibos in the SouthEastern part of Nigeria as a thickening agent in vegetable soups. Detarium is largey uncharacterised and under exploited. There is a dearth of information in the lterature on this plant ood. The aim of the study is to process, analyze and characterise detarum flour; screen detariumusing rats to investigate it\'s physiological effect on the general metaboism of rats, compare detarium to guar gum (GG) as a positive control, to determine the effects o the two foods on the plasma cholesterol level o rats. The result of the analysis showed that powdered detarium has a mean particle size of 464μm. The SNSP content per 100 g food sample was 59.8 g The viscosity o1% aqueous dispersion of the powdered detarium food sample obtained using the U tube capillaryviscometer was 4000 – 24000 cp. The main SNSP fracton of detarium was dentedto be a high molecular weight xyloglucan. In the rat study, the experimental diet contained detarium or guar gum, as positive control, at a level providing 80g soluble NSP/kg det. Food intake, faecal output, weight gain, digestibility, food efficiency ratio and plasma cholesterol (after overnight fasting) were measured. The resut showed tha the cholesterol levels of rats fed detarium and guar gum diets were significantly lower than the control (P < 0.05) using the analysis of variance. Detarium and guar gum covariates such as weight gain, food intake and faecal output. The results obtained indicate that detarium may possess properties as guar gum which maybe useful in the management of diabetes and disorders of lipid metabolism in humans.

Keywords: Detarium, Guar Gum, Soluble Non starch polysaccharides, General rat metabolism

Animal Research International Vol. 4 (1) 2007 pp. 601-607