SHENGJUN WU

HuaiHai Institute of Technology, School of Marine Science and Technology, 59 Cangwu Road, Xinpu, 222005, China

Abstract

The present work was carried out to determine the hypolipidemic activities of the lipids from Clanis bilineata larvae (Lepidoptera) (LCBL) in rats. Three groups of rats were fed diets containing either high fat or LCBL, or a normal fat for 6 weeks. Effective inhibition of body weight gain relative to high fat and normal fat groups was observed for the LCBL group. Compared with high fat and normal fat groups, LCBL group showed decreased plasma triacylglycerol (TG), total cholesterol (TC), as well as decreased plasma low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) level. Fecal fat and cholesterol of the LCBL group were lower than those of normal fat group and comparable to the HF group. The results suggest that LCBL may be a suitable alterative hypolipidemic source for humans.

INTRODUCTION

Many studies indicate that edible insects are potential food resource for human beings (1, 2). Clanis bilineata (CB) Walker is a member of the subfamily Ambulicinae (Sphingidae, Lepidoptera) that usually grows on soybean leaves. It is an edible insect, and ~ 6000 tones of CB larvae (CBL) are consumed in China each year.
In addition to be a food resource for human beings, many edible insects including CBL were reported for their hypolipidemic activity without characterizing the active ingredients in their samples (3). Polyunsaturated fatty acid, which has hypolipidemic activity (4), was reported for the presence in the body of the edible insects (1, 2).
In this paper, the fat content in CBL was determined, the fatty acids of the fat were characterised, and the hypolipidemic activity of LCBL was studied.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Total lipid content
The total lipid content in CBL was 23.31 percent g/100g dry weight, which was comparable to that of cicada (23.98 g/100g dry weight) and higher than those of June beetle (0.34 g/100g dry weight) (2). The different lipid content ...