Studies on date waste dietary fibers as hypolipidemic agent in rats

Date waste dietary fibers were examined as a hypolipidemic agent. White albino rats were fed on three experimental diets: I) high carbohydrate diet free of fiber; II) and III) diets consisted of diet I substituted with 100 g/kg of date waste dietary fibers cultured with Endomycopsis fibuligera at zero time and after 60 h of culturing respectively for 8 weeks. The total lipids, total cholesterol, triglycerides and phospholipids in the liver of rats given diets II and III were significantly decreased over those rats fed the control diet throughout the feeding period (8 weeks). The highest decrease in content of all these parameters was produced by diet III. Comparing diets II and III with the control diet I, total serum lipids and low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-cholesterol) were decreased by 32-48%, while serum triglycerides and total cholesterol levels were lowered in the groups fed diets II and III by 23-35% respectively. Concerning high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-cholesterol), the decrease was only 2-6% in rats fed diets II and III. The highest decrease level was shown in the phospholipids content (51-56%) during all of the experimental period (8 weeks).