The hypocholesterolemic effect of guar gum depends on dietary sucrose--studies in minipigs.

We examined the effect of guar gum on serum lipids if fed together with either 50.3% starch or 50.3% sucrose in a balanced diet to pigs. For this purpose, five adult hypercholesterolemic minipigs (total serum cholesterol 9.0 mmol/l) underwent three consecutive 8-week crossover (control or guar supplementation) feeding experiments (experiment I = cornstarch plus 15 g guar, experiment II = cornstarch plus 30 g guar, experiment III = sucrose plus 30 g guar per day). With the cornstarch-based diet neither 15 g nor 30 g guar gum had an influence on serum total cholesterol or triglyceride levels. Also, the cholesterol concentrations in the lipoprotein fractions did not change significantly during experiments I and II, yet total serum cholesterol concentration was about 20% lower (p less than 0.01) when guar gum was added to the sucrose diet in experiment III. In the presence of sucrose the supplementation of 30 g guar led to a significant decrease (p less than 0.05) of the cholesterol concentrations in the very low-density lipoproteins (VLDL) and high-density lipoproteins (HDL). There was also a tendency for decreased cholesterol levels in the low-density lipoproteins (LDL) after adding 30 g guar to the sucrose diet. Thus, the study demonstrates that guar gum exerts a hypocholesterolemic effect in the presence of sucrose in the diet, but not in the case of starch consumption.