Six Wistar male rats (3wk) in each group were raised with therestricted feeding the diets containing 10% of lactulose(LAT),fructooligosaccharide(FOS), galactosylsucrose(GS) orisomaltooligosaccharide(IMO) instead of sucrose to give the equalquantity for 44 days. Blood lipid parameters, osmotic diarrhea,fecal hydrolase activity, and short-chain fatty acids(SCFAs) ofcecal content were investigated. Final body weight and blood lipidparameters were not significantly different among 5 groups. LAT andFOS caused osmotic diarrhea, but GS and IMO didn’t. Amount of totalSCFAs were significantly higher in LAT and FOS than in control, GSand IMO. The activity of β-glucronidase and β-glucosidase were alsosignificantly lower in LAT and FOS than control, GS and IMO. Theseresults demonstrate that the beneficial health effects depend onthe difference in digestibility, fermentability and utilization byintestinal microbiota among oligosaccharides.

Key words: non-digestible oligosaccharides, short chain fatty acid,fermentability, osmotic diarrhea, fecal hydrolase, lactulose,fructooligosaccharide