Effect of guar gum on glucose and water absorption from isolated loops of jejunum in conscious growing pigs.

Four pigs initially of 30 kg live weight were surgically prepared with two re-entrant cannulas in the jejunum 1.0 m apart which allowed an isolated loop to be formed through which solutions were perfused. 51Cr-EDTA was used as a marker for measuring net secretion or absorption. A new Ringer solution was made, the ionic content of which resembled more closely that found in the jejunum of pigs given similar diets, than Krebs-Ringer solution. The absorption of glucose and water from Krebs-Ringer and new Ringer solutions was compared. The effect of guar gum on the absorption of glucose and water from solutions of glucose and maltose was studied. There was a trend (not significant) for greater absorption of glucose and water from the new Ringer solution than from the Krebs-Ringer solution. Guar gum significantly reduced the net absorption of glucose from glucose or maltose solutions from 74.2 to 41.4% (P less than 0.001) and 71.1 to 35.0% (P less than 0.001) respectively. Guar gum significantly reduced the net absorption of water from the glucose solution from 42.7 to 8.3% (P less than 0.01) and from the maltose solution from 49.2 to 5.1% (P less than 0.001). The lack of differences between the absorption of glucose from solutions of glucose or maltose suggested that maltase (EC 3.2.1.20) activity was not inhibited to the extent that this limited the rate of glucose absorption.