The Effect on Growth and Lipid Profile in Rats Fed Microwave Heated Corn Oil

Abstract

The domestic use of microwave heating is common. Therefore we believe that the study of microwave heated edible oils using animal models is appropriate and may help in understanding its effect on human nutrition. Currently there is growing interest to investigate the effect of microwave heating on the oxidative stability of food, as it is used more frequently than ever before. Effect of microwave heating of corn oil for 1 h and 40 min and 3 h and 20 min was investigated by assessing its fatty acid composition and peroxide value. The amount of polyunsaturated fatty acid decreased with the increase in the peroxide values of the microwave treated oil indicates decreased stability. The microwave heated oils (4% v/v) were fed to male albino rats by supplementing to the diet, to investigate whether or not they have some deleterious effect. The microwave treated oil did not affect the body weight gain as well as lipid level in rats. More over the rate of in vitro RBC hemolysis and tissue TBARS remained unaffected after ingestion of diet supplemented with microwave treated oil. These findings indicate that microwave treatment had no harmful consequences in our experimental condition.