Antioxidant effect of red mould rice in hypercholesterolemic Wistar male rats.

The effect of Monascus purpureus red mould rice (RMR) on modulation of lipid metabolism and oxidative stress was studied in hypercholesterolemic rats. Cholesterol feeding for 14 weeks caused a significant increase in the lipid peroxides and total thiols and antioxidant enzymes, viz. glutathione peroxidase (GPx), glutathione reductase (GRd), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT) in serum and liver in comparison to the control group. However, supplementation of RMR to hypercholesterolemic rats at 8, 12 and 16% significantly increased the GRd, GPx, SOD and CAT activities in serum and liver tissues. Furthermore, RMR feeding significantly decreased total thiols and lipid peroxides and also increased other antioxidant molecules such as glutathione and ascorbic acid in high-cholesterol fed rats. The efficiency of RMR (16%) in modulating the antioxidant molecules and antioxidant enzymes is comparable to standard drug-lovastatin. Thus, this study suggests that the long-term administration of RMR may play an important role in suppressing oxidative stress and, thus, may be useful for the prevention and/or early treatment of hypercholesterolemia.

Safety evaluation of pigment containing Aspergillus carbonarius biomass in albino rats.

Aspergillus carbonarius, an ascomycetes fungus, is known to produce pectinase in solid-state fermentation. A mutant strain of A. carbonarius UV-10046 selected for temperature tolerance over produced polygalacturonase and during growth accumulated an yellow pigment in its biomass. Since the colored fungus suggested its application for food use, the freeze-dried biomass was evaluated to assess its safety in experimental animals. Acute and sub-acute toxicity studies were conducted on both sexes of albino rats. Feeding acute doses of A. carbonarius freeze-dried biomass at 0.5-5.0g/kg body weight to adult rats did not show any symptoms of toxicity or mortality of the rats. Similarly, dietary feeding of A. carbonarius at 0.25-2.0% level (w/w) for 14 weeks did not produce any significant changes in food intake or gain in body weight of the experimental rats compared to control rats. There were no significant differences in the relative weight of vital organs, hematological parameters, macroscopic and microscopic changes in vital organs and serum enzyme levels between the experimental and control groups. The results clearly showed that acute and sub-acute oral feeding of freeze-dried whole cells of A. carbonarius mutant for 14 weeks did not produce any toxic effects in male and female rats.