Variation in Body Weight, Organ Weight and Haematological Parameters of Rats Fed with Diets Based on Treated African kudzu ( Pueraria phaseoloides, roxb. Benth  ) Seeds

Food insecurity is a major problem of the developing nations. There is therefore a need to assess the nutritional potentials of some lesser-known foods particularly grains with the view of adding them to the food base. In this paper, processed kudzu seeds (cooked and autoclaved for different periods(20,40,60 minutes))and raw kudzu seeds were made into flour and compounded into diets. The diets along with the negative and positive control diets were fed to eight groups of wistar rats for 28 days. The rats fed raw kudzu and negative control diet showed negative mean weight changes(- 6.50g and -10.0g )while those fed with positive control and treated kudzu diet showed positive mean weight changes with Diets 2(cooked kudzu) and Diet 8(positive control) having the highest values(55.10g and 90.0g).These changes were significantly different (P<0.05).The absolute and relative organ (liver, heart, kidney, pancreas, spleen and lungs) weight changes of the experimental animals did not follow any particular trend. Haematological parameters measured in the animals included, haemoglobin packed cell volume, white blood cells, neutrophils, eosinophil, monocytes, lymphocytes and basophils. Except for the values of haemoglobin and packed cell volume that were higher in positive reference diet (12.56g/100ml and 37.2%) which were not significantly different (P<0.05) from the cooked diet (12.0g/100ml and 36.33%) but significantly different from others, the remaining haematological parameters did not follow any particular trend in all the groups. The result showed that the treated flour supported growth but had no definite effect on other parameters measured. The flour can therefore support growth in higher animals.