Diets containing leguminous seeds influence chromium content in the rat femur bone.

Leguminous seeds contain a lot of antinutritional factors (ANFs) such as protease inhibitors, lectins and condensed tannins which can affect bioavailability of nutrients. Detrimental effect of protease inhibitors can be decreased by sulphur amino acids addition. Moreover, most of the leguminous ANFs are thermolabile. Hence, legumes tested in our study were extruded and/or diets were supplemented with methionine and cystine (0.15% + 0.15%). The present experiment was performed for 28 days on 90 Wistar rats divided into nine feeding groups. Semipurified diets (10% casein) were supplemented (10%), except the control one, with soybean (S) or faba bean (F), raw (R) or extruded (E), with addition of sulphur amino acids (SAA) or without them. The Cr concentration was determined in the femur bone. Total feed intake during whole trial widely varied among the groups and was the lowest in SR (289 g) and FR (294 g) groups. There was no correlation between feed intake and Cr content in the femur bone. Generally, 10% soybean in the diet decreased Cr concentration in the bones, and faba bean increased it. The SAA addition to diets generally increased femur Cr content. However, there was a significant interaction between SAA supplementation and extrusion of faba bean, hence, the effect of their combination was unclear.