The effect of guar gum on the viscosity of the gastrointestinal contents and on glucose uptake from the perfused jejunum in the rat.

1. Male Wistar rats were meal-fed for at least 10 d a control semi-synthetic diet containing no guar gum, or one of three similar test diets containing 3, 10 or 20 g dry guar gum/kg. 2. Rats were killed 6 h after feeding, and contents of stomach, small and large intestine were collected separately. The apparent viscosities of stomach and small intestine contents from animals fed on diets containing 10 and 20 g guar gum/kg were increased relative to control animals, but large intestine contents were unchanged. 3. In the second part of this study, male Wistar rats were anaesthetized and two consecutive lengths of jejunum were perfused, initially with Ringer only (control) or Ringer plus 5 or 6 g guar gum/1 (test). Following this pre-perfusion, both segments were perfused with Ringer containing glucose (10 mM), [3H]glucose and [14C]inulin, and the rate of glucose absorption was determined. 4. The rate of glucose absorption was decreased relative to control values in segments pre-perfused with both 5 and 6 g guar gum/1 solution, but this reduction was significant only in the instance of the 6 g/l solution (P less than 0.001). 5. These results provide evidence to support previous assumptions that ingestion of guar gum will increase the apparent viscosity of the contents of the stomach and small intestine. We propose that a possible mechanism by which guar reduces post-prandial glycaemia is a reduction of glucose absorption from the small intestine, resulting from an increase in viscosity of the contents.