Effects of edible fats and oils on the body weight gain and on weights of some selected organs in rats removing the impact of unequal feed intake

Abstract

An investigation on Long Evans male rats fed with different edible fats and oils was conducted in the Department of Physiology, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh during a period of 7 weeks (1st April to 19th May, 2005) to determine and to compare the effect of feeds on body weight gain and on weights of some selected organs (heart, liver and kidney) removing the impact of unequal feed intake. A total of 20, six-week old male rats were randomly divided into A, B, C and D groups. Each group consisted of 5 rats. Rats were fed rat pellets purchased from ICDDR,B, Dhaka supplemented with beef fat in group A, fish fat in group B and soybean oil in group C while group D was considered as control and fed only with rat pellets. The concentration of fats and oils were 7% of normal diet and fed for 7 weeks. The highest weekly mean body weight gain (19.90g) adjusted for unequal feed intake was achieved by the rats of beef fat supplemented group A, followed by the rats of soybean oil supplemented group C (19.76g) and fish fat supplemented group B (15.67g). But none of the adjusted means of weekly body weight gain differed significantly (p > 0.05) from the control. Insignificant increases in heart weight were recorded in all treated rats and the maximum weight was in fish oil treated ones. Not much differences were recorded in the kidney weights rather beef oil treated rats' kidney had the lowest mean weight. A significantly (p < 0.01) higher liver weight was recorded in group B & C compared to control (group D), though the differences between A & D were insignificant. It could be concluded that fats and oils are harmful for the rat's body especially on liver and heart. Key words: Edible fats and oils, rat, body weight, organ weight, analysis of variance, covariance DOI = 10.3329/bjvm.v5i1.1326 Bangl. J. Vet. Med. (2007). 5 (1 & 2): 107-110