Intestinal Motility And Transit Following Chronic Ingestion Of Different Forms Of Palm Oil Diets

This study was aimed at finding the effect of palm oil diets on the small intestinal motor activity and transit in rats. Adult albino Wistar rats were divided into three groups of ten rats each. The first group was fed on rat chow containing 15% (wt/wt) of fresh palm oil diets for fifteen weeks. The second was fed on rat chow containing 15% (wt/wt) thermally oxidized diet while the third group was the control and so was fed on rat chow only. Water and feed were allowed freely to all the groups. Intestinal motility and transit were measured after the feeding period. Results show that there was a significant increase (P<0.05) in basal tone of the ileum from rats fed on thermally oxidized palm oil diet when compared with fresh palm oil fed and control diets respectively. Contraction to acetylcholine (10^-11 – 10^-5 M) showed a biphasic tone with highest contraction at lower doses of acetylcholine and lowest tone at 10^-7 M in both fresh palm oil-fed and thermally oxidized oil-fed groups when compared with control. There was a significant (P<0.05) attenuation of inhibition of atropine effect in the oxidized oil fed group when compared with control while there was a significant (P<0.01) increase in transit of food material in the intestine of oxidized oil-fed group when compared with control and fresh palm oil-fed groups. These results show that chronic ingestion of oxidized palm oil diet causes an increase in basal tone of ileum and enhances intestinal motility and transit in the rat.