Effect of Controlled Fermentation of Some Traditional Foods on the Glycaemic Response of Diabetic Adult Rats

ABSTRACT Effect of controlled fermentation with Candida tropicalis on glycaemic index of cassava, maize and sorghum flours and blood glucose response, protein utilization, mineral and vitamin bioavailability of their blends in diabetes induced adult rats was studied. Candida tropicalis was isolated and used in semi-solid state controlled fermentation of the starchy foods at 0, 24, 48 and 72h. Physicochemical composition of the fermented starchy flours and two under-exploited unfermented legume seed flours of Bielschmeidia gabonensis (BG) and Cola gigantean (CG) used as soup thickeners were determined. Standard techniques and statistical methods were adopted to generate data, separate and compare means of preliminary results. Three diets based on 24h fermented cassava (CA24h), maize (MA24h), sorghum (SO24h) and unfermented Cola gigeantea (CG) were used for the rat study. These test diets provided 1.6g nitrogen daily and 20g total dietary fibre/1000kcal in a ratio of 1:2, soluble: insoluble dietary fibre to mimic traditional diets. Rat chow (RC) served as the control. Sixteen adult rats (160-196g) were allotted to both control and 3 test diets in groups of 4 on the basis of body weight. The rats were individually housed in metabolism cages, induced diabetes with streptozotocin and fed ad libitum in a14-day balance study. Food intake, body weight, fasting blood glucose (FBG), plasma proteins, blood urea nitrogen (BUN), carcass nitrogen (CN), liver composition, protein, vitamin and mineral bioavailability were determined. All analyses were done using standard techniques to generate data. Completely randomized design was adopted for the bioassay. Students’ t-test, Duncan’s new multiple range test and Fisher’s least significant difference test were employed to separate and compare means statistically (p