The effects of dietary gum karaya (Sterculia) in man

Following a 7-day control period, 5 male volunteers consumed 10.5 g gum karaya (GK) daily for 21 days. Measurements before and at the end of the test period showed that the ingestion of GK had no significant effect on the following: intestinal transit time, faecal wet or dry weight, concentrations of faecal fat, total and individual volatile fatty acids, bile acids, and neutral sterols; breath hydrogen and methane concentrations; glucose tolerance; serum cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, triglycerides and phospholipids; plasma biochemistry; haematological indices; urinalysis parameters. The daily test intake, which was large in relation to the very minor amounts of GK used in foodstuffs, did not cause any toxic effects in terms of the wide range of measurements made; moreover the GK had no metabolic action of any consequence.