Effects of Feeding Foxtail Millet and Adlay Processing Product on Gastric Mucosal Lesions, Digestive Enzyme Activities and Plasma Calcium level in Stress-Induced Animal Model

The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of foxtail millet and adlay processing product (APP) on acute gastric mucosa lesions via water immersion restraint stress (WIRS) animal models based on their preventive antioxidation properties. The study provided insights to whether foxtail millet and APP could exert effects on plasma calcium level and digestive enzyme activities in the small intestines in Wistar rats. In this experiments, we used different dosages of foxtail millet and APP to replace partial components of AIN-93 G diet feeding to Wistar rats. Levels of gastric ulcer index (UI), gastric nonprotein sulfhydryl groups (NPSH), liver nonprotein sulfhydryl groups, gastric lipid peroxidation, plasma lipid peroxidation, plasma calcium level, intestine disaccharidase, amylase, lipase and leucine aminopeptidase activities were examined after four hours of WIRS. After four weeks of foxtail millet feeding, the low dosage group (10%) was significantly decreased UI and increased level of gastric NPSH and disaccharidase activities compared to the negative control group. In another experiment, after feeding APP for 5 weeks, low dosage group (15%) significantly decreased UI, liver lipid peroxidation and increased plasma calcium level compared with the negative control group. In high dosage of APP (30%), gastric mucosa and liver lipid peroxidation significantly decreased and amylase, lactase, sucrase, maltase activities significantly elevated compared to the negative control group.