Table 1. Food intake, body weight gain, and cecal variables in intact rats fed the respective diets for 15 days (preliminary experiment).

	Control	HACS	PS
Food intake, g/15 days	242 ± 3	214 ± 3	213 ± 4
Body weight gain, g/15 days	50 ± 1	44 ± 3	48 ± 3
Cecum
Contents, g	1.8 ± 0.1a	4.4 ± 0.3b	5.6 ± 0.5b
pH	7.7 ± 0.1a	6.1 ± 0.1b	6.3 ± 0.3b
Organic acid, μmol/cecum
Acetate	104.3 (80.2–132.0)	590.9 (328.3–783.6)*	637.0 (165.3–1427)*
Propionate	31.0 (3.2–36.0)	272.7 (83.6–417.8)*	193.6 (52.5–432.0)*
n-Butyrate	9.9 (7.9–11.9)	82.5 (43.2–146.4)*	127.1 (115.1–171.5)*
Succinate	1.4 (0.4–2.0)	166.8 (102.4–216.4)*	109.9 (2.7–244.2)*
Lactate	0.0 (0.0–0.8)	0.0 (0.0–509.5)	129.1 (0.0–625.9)*
Formate	0.0 (0.0–0.0)	115.2 (0.0–248.1)*	169.2 (2.1–397.9)*
Total organic acid	141.2 ± 12.5a	1180 ± 182.3b	1349 ± 373.0b
Molar proportion of butyrate in SCFA1, %	7.4 ± 0.7a	10.0 ± 1.1a	18.0 ± 4.4b

Data are expressed as the mean ± SE or median (range), n=8. Values in a row not sharing a common superscript letter are significantly different (p<0.05) when analyzed by the Tukey-Kramer test. When variances were not homogenous, data were analyzed by Kruskal-Wallis one-way ANOVA followed by the Kolmogorov-Smirnov two-sample test. *p<0.05 vs. control. ¹ Sum of acetate, propionate and n-butyrate.