Abstract:

The erucic acid contents of cold-pressing double-low rapeseed oil and common rapeseed oil were analyzed by gas chromatography (GC). Sixty Kunming mice (half male and half female) were divided into 3 groups of 20 mice each (also half male and half female): control (fed normal diet), cold-pressing double-low rapeseed oil-treated (fed diet containing cold-pressing double-low rapeseed oil with 2% oil content) and common rapeseed oil-treated (fed common rapeseed oil with 2% oil content) groups. All these mice were fed for 5 consecutive weeks. The general status, body weight, food consumption, blood lipid indexes including total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG) and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) and the weights of the visceral organs including heart, liver, spleen, lung and kidney of mice were measured once a week during the period of feeding. The results indicated that the erucic acid content of cold-pressing double-low rapeseed oil was 4.744%, and that of common rapeseed oil was 32.595%. Obviously, the former was much lower than the latter. The mice fed diet containing cold-pressing double-low rapeseed oil presented lower serum TC and TG levels but slightly higher HDL-C level than the mice fed diet containing common rapeseed oil. Therefore, cold-pressing double-low rapeseed oil is more suitable for animal feeding due to lower increments of the above serum lipid parameters when compared with common rapeseed oil. Compared with control and cold-pressing double-low rapeseed oil-treated mice, common rapeseed oil-treated mice showed an obvious increase in the weights of heart and liver, which might be related to fat deposition in heart and liver induced by the presence of erucic acid. No significant differences in body weight, food consumption and the weights of spleen, lung and kidney were observed among mice fed normal diet and diet containing cold-pressing double-low rapeseed oil or common rapeseed oil.

Key words: rapeseed oil, erucic acid content, serum lipid, organ weight, food intake safety