Digestive enzyme activities.
The effects of chitosan
supplementation on the activities of pepsin,
amylase, and lipase are shown in Table 4. No significant
difference was found for the activities of
pepsin and amylase in the distal jejunum digesta
among the five groups on days 14 and 28. Chitosan
supplementation had no effect on the activity of
amylase in proximal jejunum on day 14, however,
on day 28, a quadratic increase tendency (P =
0.062) was observed with increasing chitosan
supplementation. The lipase activity of proximal
jejunum contents was not affected by increasing
chitosan supplementation on days 14 and 28. Dietary
chitosan linearly decreased the lipase activity
of distal jejunum compared with the control on
days 14 (P < 0.01) and 28 (P < 0.05).