Effects of Dietary Cholesterol Level on Heart Cholesterol and Palmitoleic Acid in Female Rats

抄録

The effects of dietary cholesterol on the relationship among cholesterol and fatty acid levels in the serum, liver, and heart of female rats were studied. When various levels of cholesterol (0, 0.25, 0.50, 0.75, and 1.00%) were added to a 10% butter diet with cholic acid, proportional increases appeared in liver weight (r=0.94), but no significant increase occurred in body or heart weight. An increase in dietary cholesterol induced increases in serum, liver, and heart cholesterol (r=0.72, r=0.87, and r=0.84, respectively). A direct relationship was found between the cholesterol levels for the serum and the liver (r=0.67) and for the serum and the heart (r=0.83). The ratio of polyunsaturated fatty acids/cholesterol decreased with cholesterol levels in serum, liver, and heart (r=-0.83, r=-0.74, and r=-0.77, respectively). The changes in heart cholesterol correlated positively with the changes in heart levels of palmitoleic acid (r=0.61), and the value of palmitoleic acid in the heart correlated with the values for serum palmitoleic acid (r=0.60). These results indicate that dietary cholesterol has profound effects on the levels of cholesterol and palmitoleic acid in the heart as in the serum and liver and show that changes in the amounts of cholesterol and palmitoleic acid in serum reflect changes in these amounts in the liver and heart.