Comparative study of hypocholesterolemic potential of pineapple and passion fruit peels in rats and mice

Researchers showed the importance of diets rich in fibers on the prevention of cardiovascular disease. As the passion fruit mesocarp and the peel of pineapple are rich in fibers, the aim of this work was to evaluate their influence on lipid metabolism in hypercholesterolemic rats and mice. The rats and mice received a high calorie diet, which consisted of a mixture of standard normocaloric feed (Nuvilab ® ; 3.78 kcal / g), roasted peanuts (5.95 kcal / g), chocolate (5.4 kcal/ g) and corn starch cookies (4.25 kcal / g). The animals received this diet during a period of 30 days. Subsequently, animals were treated with passion fruit mesocarp (DHM), pineapple peels (DHA) or simvastatin (DS) for 15 days. The administration of high calorie diet increased the levels of total cholesterol in rats and mice. In rats, there was a significant reduction in total cholesterol levels in DHM, DHA and DHS groups, and in mice, only the group treated with simvastatin (DHS) had reduced plasma cholesterol levels. There were no significant changes on glucose levels of any groups. The high calorie diet caused plasma triglycerides augmentation only in rats. However, any of the treatments were able to reduce the hypertriglyceridemia in rats. Furthermore, treatments didnt cause any changes on plasmatic AST and ALT activities. Therefore, it is possible to say that treatment with peels of pineapple and passion fruit mesocarp is efficient to reduce hypercholesterolemia in rats. Also, the treatments with fruits peels did not show signs of liver toxicity.