A PRELIMINARY STUDY ON THE COMPOSITION AND QUALITY OF “BAOKEXIANG” TEA OIL AND THE EFFECTS OF THE OIL ON SERUM LIPIDS IN DIETAPY RATS

"Baokexiang" tea oil is a cooking oil obtained from the seed of Camellia grijsii Hance. Tests of composition and quality of the oil showed that there were high contents of unsaturated fatty acids in the oil (75-80% oleinic acid and 8-10% linoleic acid) and it had better quality than the tea oil which was from the seed of Camellia oleifera Abel., with Vitamin E content 2-5 times as much as the latter possessed.A dietary experiment was carried out using Spraque-Dawley male rats fed with "Baokexiang" tea oil, common tea oil and soybean oil respectively for 3 months. The results showed that the serum high-density lipoproteins (HDLs) of the rats fed with"Baokexiang" tea oil and common tea oil were significantly higher than that fed with soybean oil (P0.01), the serum triglyceride of the rats fed with "Baokexiang" oil was significantly lower (P0.05) than that fed with common tea oil and also lower than that fed with soybean oil but not significant in statistics, but the serum cholesterol level in rats fed with the two kinds of tea oil was remarkably higher than that fed with soybean oil (P0.01).Liver anatomy of the rats revealed that there was no pathological change in liver cells of the rats fed with two kinds of tea oil, but some pathological changes in that of the rats fed with soybean oil including slight fat denatura-tion in certain individual.The suggestion made from the current study is, to find out a compound cooking oil from "Baokexiang" tea oil and soybean oil as one of the procedures which could hopefully lower the serum cholesterol and triglyceride but raise HDLs to reach a goal of preventing and curing the coronary heart disease for a long period.