Ascorbic acid supplementation of a high sucrose diet on rat oral tissue glycoprotein and lipid levels

Abstract

PLEASE NOTE: This work is protected by copyright. Downloading is restricted to the BU community: please click Download and log in with a valid BU account to access. If you are the author of this work and would like to make it publicly available, please contact [email protected] (M.Sc.D.)--Boston University, Henry M. Goldman School of Graduate Dentistry, 1983 (Nutritional sciences)Bibliography : leaves 43-45.The objective of this study was to explore some major biochemical parameters in selected oral tissues (oral mucosa and submandibular salivary glands) following the feeding of diets high in sucrose and/or ascorbic acid; any observations would be compared to hepatic tissue. The animals selected for this study were forty (40) twenty-one day old male rats. The rats were divided into four dietary groups (control group, control plus ascorbic acid, high sucrose group, and the high sucrose plus ascorbic acid). At the end of fourteen days) analyses for DNA, total protein,protein-bound hexoses, protein-bound fucose, total lipids, neutral lipids, polar lipids, free fatty acids, triglycerides, mono and di-glycerides, methyl ester derivatives of free fatty acids) lysophosphatidyl choline) sphingomyelin, phosphatidyl choline, phosphatidyl inositol and serine, phosphatidyl ethanolamine, phosphatidic acid, cholesterol, and cholesterol esters were determined. The lipid analyses were carried out only in the salivary glands while the other analyses were determined for all tissues. The results showed that those rats fed the high sucrose diet supplemented with ascorbic acid had a significant increase in hepatic protein-bound hexose levels. This suggests a possible increase of internal glycosylations. In oral mucosa, the high sucrose regimen favored lower levels of bound hexoses. When such a diet was supplemented with ascorbic acid, the hexose levels were restored to control values. In submandibular salivary glands, ascorbic acid supplementation only elevated the total cholesterol level and had little or no effect on the other lipid fractions. These findings support the need for additional research on specific biochemical systems following such dietary manipulations. Such research should include mature animals as well