Effect of Sunflower Wax Supplemented Diet on Lipid Profiles in Albino Rats

Unrefined sunflower oil contains wax to an extent of up to 1%. The effect of feeding sunflower wax at 0.1, 0.5, and 1% levels on the growth, serum and liver lipid profiles was investigated in experimental rats. Weanling male albino rats were fed American Institute of Nutrition-76 diet containing 0.0 (control), 0.1, 0.5 and 1.0% sunflower wax for 8 weeks. The food consumption of rats fed on sunflower wax-containing diets was same as that of controls. The sunflower wax in the diet had no effect on growth or organ weights of rats. There were no differences in hematological parameters in animals fed wax-containing diets compared to control animals. Histological observations of liver and aorta showed no abnormalities. However, serum lipid analyses showed reductions in total cholesterol by 21 and 22% in rats fed on 0.5 and 1.0% wax, respectively, compared with that of rats fed control diets. There were marginal reductions in liver cholesterol and phospholipid contents of rats given wax-containing diets. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS There was no investigation on sunflower-seed wax for nutritional and safety evaluation. This lead us to study the safety of (1) sunflower wax available in refining industry as crude wax, which could be purified for its use in food industry and (2) safety of consumption of under-refined or expeller pressed filtered oil. The nutritional quality and safety evaluation of the wax by feeding wax-supplemented diet is presented. The short-term feeding studies on albino rats, histological and hematological observation indicated that the expeller pressed filtered oil are safe for (1) direct consumption without further refining processes and (2) usage of sunflower wax in food industry, especially in panned confectionary, and wax emulsions in coating of fruits may be applicable. This investigation reveals that the present level of consumption of wax up to 1% in the diet with the mean intake of wax 0.58 g/kg body weight lowers the serum cholesterol level.