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Sesame seed and its lignans produce marked enhancement of vitamin E activity in rats fed a low α-tocopherol diet

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Lipids

Abstract

Three series of experiments demonstrated that sesame seed and its lignans cause significant elevation of α-tocopherol content in rats. In Experiment 1, 20% sesame seed (with a negligible amount of α-tocopherol) supplementing 10 (low), 50 (normal), or 250 (high) mg/kg α-tocopherol diets (protein and fat concentrations in diets were adjusted to 200 and 110 g/kg, respectively) all caused a significant increase of α-tocopherol in the blood and tissue of rats. In Experiment 2, groups of rats were fed five different diets: a vitamin E-free control diet, a low α-tocopherol diet, and three low α-tocopherol diets supplemented with 5, 10, and 15% sesame seed. Changes in lipid peroxides in liver, red blood cell hemolysis, and pyruvate kinase activity, as indices of vitamin E deficiency, were examined. These indices were high in the low α-tocopherol diet, whereas supplementation with even 5% sesame seed suppressed these indices completely and caused a significant increase of α-tocopherol content in the plasma and liver. In Experiment 3 two diets containing sesame lignan (sesaminol or sesamin) and low α-tocopherol were tested. Results in both of the sesame lignan-fed groups were comparable to those observed in the sesame seed-fed groups as shown in Experiment 2. These experiments indicate that sesame seed lignans enhance vitamin E activity in rats fed a low α-tocopherol diet and cause a marked increase in α-tocopherol concentration in the blood and tissue of rats fed an α-tocopherol-containing diet with sesame seed or its lignans.

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Abbreviations

ANOVA:

analysis of variance

HPLC:

high-performance liquid chromatography

VLDL:

very low density lipoprotein

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Food and Nutrition, School of Life Studies, Sugiyama Jogakuen University, 17-3 Hoshigaoka-motomachi, Chikusa-ku, 464, Nagoya, Japan

    Kanae Yamashita, Yoshie Iizuka, Tomoko Imai & Mitsuo Namiki

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  1. Kanae Yamashita
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  2. Yoshie Iizuka
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  3. Tomoko Imai
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  4. Mitsuo Namiki
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Yamashita, K., Iizuka, Y., Imai, T. et al. Sesame seed and its lignans produce marked enhancement of vitamin E activity in rats fed a low α-tocopherol diet. Lipids 30, 1019–1028 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02536287

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02536287

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