Disaccharidase levels of the rat jejunum are altered by dietary fibre.

Rat jejunal disaccharidases were measured after feeding high fat fibre-free, high fat pectin, high fat cellulose, high fat galactomannan and high fat tannin diets for 27 weeks. Compared with the high fat fibre-free diet, pectin lowered both lactase and sucrase levels (p less than 0.025). Galactomannan and tannin lowered only the lactase level (p less than 0.05), while cellulose had no significant effect on disaccharidase levels. These data suggest that dietary fibre components have individual and specific effects on jejunal disaccharidase levels, in the presence of a high fat diet.