In vivo evaluation of holocellulose and cellulose isolated from kumaizasa (Sasa senanensis) powder on bowel movements in rats

Background: Kumaizasa (Sasa senanensis Rehder) is a representative natural plant growing in Hokkaido, Japan, and has a history of being used in herbal medicine and as a health food option. Nishihira et. al. (2019) confirmed in a clinical trial that the kumaizasa dry powder had the effect of improving bowel movements of healthy volunteers. In this study, we evaluated the effect of the components of kumaizasa powder, like holocellulose (hemicellulose + cellulose) and cellulose, involved in the bowel movement of rats and tried to elucidate the role of each component.Methods: Male rats (Slc:SD, weight 79~93 g) were administered kumaizasa powder (3000 mg/kg/day) orally, holocellulose (1500 mg/kg/day), cellulose (900mg /kg/day) or water using a stomach tube twice a day for 14 days.Results: Among the intervention groups (kumaizasa powder, holocellulose, cellulose group) and control group (water), no significant differences were observed with changes in body weight and food consumption. All the feces were normal, with one exception of watery feces on day 2 in the cellulose group. Multigroup comparison by the Tukey-Kramer method showed that the dry weight of feces collected at day 14 in the kumaizasa powder group significantly increased as compared with that of the control group (p<0.01). This result confirmed that kumaizasa powder had the effect of increasing fecal amount. A paired t-test between each kumaizasa group and control group indicated that the cellulose increased the fecal dry weights and moisture content in feces, while the kumaizasa powder and the holocellulose increased only fecal dry weights.Conclusion: It is shown that the holocellulose and cellulose of kumaizasa powder have the effect of increasing the bowel movement of rats by oral administration. It is also suggested that the cellulose increases the moisture content in the feces by swelling, while hemicellulose in the holocellulose acts as a prebiotic to regulate the moisture content in feces.Keywords: Kumaizasa, Sasa senanensis Rehder, hemicellulose, cellulose, holocellulose, bowel movements