Abstract
Extruded soy-cocoa and corn-starch based complementary diet with a protein-energy ratio of 21% holds great promise in alleviating malnutrition so prevalent among Nigerian children under five years. There is however, paucity of scientific information on its safety- a necessary prelude to trials on human subjects. This study reports a controlled feeding trial involving 29 adult wistar rats housed in standard cages and acclimatization for 10 days under tropical room temperature conditions. Following a subsequent daily intubate feeding, 50 - 5000 mg/kg body weight for 21 days, sub-acute toxicity studies (anthropometric, biochemical, haematological and histopathological) were done. Results show that the diet had a statistically significant salutary effect on growth (weight gain 56.9%) of test rats when compared with control (37.85) at an optimum daily intake of 100 mg/kg body weight. Haematological characteristics such as mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (MCHC) range from 276-294 g/l for treatment groups as against 282 g/l for control with no significant difference (P ≤ 0.05). The values (0.56 - 7.74 µ/kat/l) obtained for alkaline phosphate (ALP)- a key biochemical marker in liver function tests were within permissible limits. Moreover, rat biopsy (histopathology) revealed no necrosis. Evidently extruded soy-cocoa corn starch-based complementary food has no established deleterious effect and may therefore be safe for humans.
Key words: Complementary food, extruded soy-cocoa, sub-acute toxicity, food safety, rat biopsy.
