Effect of Oat and Tartary Buckwheat - Based Food on Cholesterol - Lowering and Gut Microbiota in Hypercholesterolemic Hamsters.

The nutritional components in oat and tartary buckwheat had been assessed to have cholesterollowering effects. However, The effect of oat and tartary buckwheat based-food (OF) on cholesterol-lowering and gut microbiota in hypercholesterole hamsters was still limited studied because they are usually consumed in whole gran as well as after being processed. In this study, normal diets, high fat diet (HFD) with/without OF were fed to hamsters for 30 days respectively and growth parameters, metabolic parameters, and gut microbiota were investigated, respectively. It was found that OF significantly decreased plasma total cholesterol (TC) and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-cholesterol), lowered liver TC, cholesterol ester (CE), and triglycerides (TG) concentrations, and increased fecal weight and bile acids (BA) concentrations, compared with HFD (p < 0.05). Moreover, the concentrations of acetate, propionate, butyrate and total short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) were significantly increased in hamsters fed with OF, compared with HFD (p < 0.05). OF changed the overall structure of gut microbiota. The relative abundances of Erysipelotrichaceae, Ruminococcaceae, and Lachnospiraceae were decreased and the relative abundance of Eubacteriaceae was increased, compared with HFD. These results suggested that OF could reduce the concentrations of plasma lipid by inhibiting cholesterol absorption in liver and promoting excretions of fecal lipid and BA. And it also increased SCFAs and modulated the gut microbiota effectively to exert the hypocholesterolemic effects.

A study of extraction process and in vitro antioxidant activity of total phenols from Rhizoma Imperatae.

The study investigated the extraction method of Rhizoma Imperatae and its antioxidant activity, and provided a basis for its rational development. The extraction method of Rhizoma Imperatae was determined using orthogonal design test and by total phenol content, its hydroxyl radical scavenging ability was measured by Fenton reaction, and potassium ferricyanide reduction method was used to determine its reducing power. The results showed that the optimum extraction process of Rhizoma Imperatae was a 50-fold volume of water, 30 °C, three times of extraction with 2 h each. Its IC50 for scavenging of hydroxyl radicals was 0.0948 mg/mL, while IC50 of ascorbic acid was 0.1096 mg/mL; in the ferricyanide considerable reduction method, the extract exhibited reducing power comparable to that of the ascorbic acid. The study concluded that Rhizoma Imperatae extract contains relatively large amount of polyphenols, and has a good anti-oxidation ability.