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Influence of Dietary Glycerol on the Serum Lipoproteins of Rats Fed a Fat-Free Diet¹

Nutrition Group, Food Sciences Laboratory, U.S. Army Natick Research and Development Command, Natick, Massachusetts 01760

The effects of a high level of dietary glycerol on six density classes of serum lipoproteins were investigated in adult male Holtzman rats. A diet consisting by weight of glucose, 75.3%; vitamin-free casein, 17%; mineral mixture, 5.5%; and all necessary vitamins in glucose, 2.2%, was used as the control diet (group A). In two other groups, B and C respectively, either 30% glycerol or 20% corn oil was added by weight to diet A at the expense of glucose. The diets for groups A and B were approximately isoenergetic (3.8 kcal/g), but the diet for group C had a higher density of energy (4.6 kcal/g). At the end of 20 weeks of feeding the diets, serum chylomicra and high density lipoproteins (HDL₂) as well as total serum cholesterol, phospholipids and triglycerides were significantly greater in group B than in group A. From polyacrylamide disc gel patterns, it appeared that the major low density lipoprotein component was lower in group B than in other groups. The serum HDL₂-protein, lipoprotein, and cholesterol levels were higher in group B than in group C, while the serum chylomicron lipoprotein levels in these two groups were not significantly different from one another. The present data suggested that a high level of dietary glycerol stimulated lipogenesis by the intestinal mucosal cells and thereby increased the output of chylomicra. It was previously reported that liver lipids were greatly elevated in rats in group C as compared with groups A and B. The simultaneous increase in liver and serum lipids in group B suggested that the mechanism of induction of fatty liver by glycerol resembled that by ethanol, but differed from those initiated by carbon tetrachloride, ethionine or choline deficiency.

KEY WORDS: • serum lipids • lipoproteins • dietary glycerol • chylomicra • absorption • fatty liver • corn oil

¹ A preliminary communication was published as an abstract (1976). Federation Proc. 35, 1171.

² Present address: Department of Nutrition, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee.

³ This work and manuscript was completed before Dr. William K. Calhoun's untimely death, October 31, 1976.

Manuscript received 7 March 1977.