Abstract:

Objective: To investigate the effects of cellulose nanocrystals from sweet potato residues on the levels of bloodglucose and serum lipid in diabetic rats. Methods: Forty mature male SD rats were divided into five groups. One groupwas fed with a basal diet as control group (CON). The other four groups were subjected to intraperitoneal injection ofstreptozotocin (STZ) to establish diabetic rat models. The rats were fed with the basal diet and dietary fiber, assigned intomodel control (MC), ordinary cellulose (OC), microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) and cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) groups.All rats were sacrificed after 28 days of feeding to assay body weight, food intake, fasting plasma glucose, glycosylatedserum protein, serum insulin, liver glycogen, and serum lipids. Results: Compared with the control group, food intake,fasting plasma glucose, glycosylated serum protein, and serum lipids in the model control were significantly higher (P < 0.05);however body weight, insulin and hepatic glycogen significantly declined (P < 0.05). The results suggested the diabeticmodel was successfully established and the diabetic rats showed corresponding symptoms. Feeding sweet potato fibers withdifferent granularities to diabetic rats could result in an increase in body weight and the levels of serum insulin and glycogenand a decrease in fasting glucose, glycosylated serum protein and blood lipids. In contrast, feeding cellulose nanocrystalscaused significant changes in all these parameters (P < 0.05). Conclusion: The hypoglycemic and hypolipidemic effectsof sweet potato residue fiber were more obvious with decreasing granularity. Therefore, cellulose nanocrystals from sweetpotato residues can effectively regulate the levels of blood glucose and serum lipid.

Key words: cellulose nanocrystals from sweet potato residues, diabetic rats, glycosylated serum protein, insulin, serum lipid