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The effect of clofibrate on heart and plasma lipids in rats fed a diet containing rapeseed oil
Author(s) -
Christiansen Renata Z.,
Norseth Jon,
Christiansen Erling N.
Publication year - 1979
Publication title -
lipids
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.601
H-Index - 120
eISSN - 1558-9307
pISSN - 0024-4201
DOI - 10.1007/bf02533445
Subject(s) - clofibrate , erucic acid , rapeseed , lipidology , chemistry , clinical chemistry , food science , fatty acid , tallow , biochemistry , medicine
Abstract The effect of clofibrate on heart and plasma lipids in rats fed a diet containing 30% of the calories as peanut oil (PO) or rapeseed oil (RSO) (42.7% erucic acid and 0.5% eicosenoic acid) was studied. A decrease of erucic acid content to one‐third and concomitant increase in the content of 18∶1, 16∶1 and 16∶0 fatty acids in plasma triacylglycerols were observed after administration of clofibrate to rats fed the RSO‐diet. It is suggested that these changes reflect the increased capacity of the liver to chainshorten very long chain length fatty acids. The extent of lipidosis in the heart of rats fed the RSO‐diet was decreased by 50% by clofibrate. However, the concentration of erucic acid in heart triacylglycerols decreased much less (30%) than the concentration of all other fatty acids (50–65%). It is concluded that the clofibrate administration increased the oxidative capacity of the heart mitochondria and that the heart cell does not have an efficient system to handle very long chain length monounsaturated fatty acids as does the liver.