Abstract:
Banana blossom is a popular Sri Lankan dish consumed as a curry as well as a boiled or
deep fried salad, which is rich in nutrients and antioxidants. The present work was designed
to study the hypolipidemic and hypoglycemic effects of banana blossom in high-cholesterol
diet fed rats. Whole blossom of Ambul banana were washed and cut into small pieces
followed by air and oven drying and ground into powder. Seven months old eighteen Wistar
rats were purchased from the Medical Research Institute, Sri Lanka and divided into three
experimental groups. All three groups were fed for 4 weeks, with casein as the basal diet
(CN), in comparison with two diets containing 0.5% cholesterol (CD) and 0.5% cholesterol
+ 21% banana blossom powder (CDB). Serum total cholesterol (1.32 ± 0.09 mmol/L), non-
HDL cholesterol (0.83± 0.10 mmol/L) and serum glucose concentration (2.94 ± 0.31
mmol/L) were significantly lower (P0.05) in CDB-fed group compared with the CD-fed
group. In the CDB-fed group, significantly higher fecal weight (3.72± 0.25 g), cecal weight
(0.61± 0.05 g), cecal Lactobacilli (7.91± 0.05 log10cfu/g) and Bifidobacteria (8.32± 0.25
log10cfu/g) populations were observed compared to CD and CN diet fed groups.
Significantly lower serum AST level (0.74±0.42 Δ A /min) (P0.05) in banana blossom fed
rats was an indication of the reduction in oxidative stress induced by high cholesterol diet.
Based on these data, it could be speculated that banana blossom incorporated
experimental diets may modulate the hypocholesterolemic and hypoglycemic responses in
Wistar rats.