Colonic cell growth and mucin degradation in rats fed diets containing various levels of beta-carotene with and without dietary agar.

1. To either an agar-containing diet or an agar-free diet, 0, 0.3 and 2.0 mg/100 g of beta-carotene were incorporated and fed to groups of five rats for 28 days. 2. Weight gain and food consumption of rats fed different dietary groups did not show a significant difference (P > 0.05). 3. Colon weight, colonic mucosal DNA and RNA were generally higher in rats fed agar diets than rats fed agar-free diets at either beta-carotene supplementation level. 4. Mucinase activity was higher (P < 0.05) in rats fed the agar diet than in rats fed an agar-free diet without beta-carotene. However, the difference was not observed (P > 0.05) when beta-carotene was incorporated. 5. These data suggest that colonic mucin degradation in rats fed an agar diet decreased when the dietary beta-carotene inclusion level increased.