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The Effects of Soya Lecithin on the Absorption, Utilization and Storage of Vitamin a and Carotene in the white Rat

Department of Dairy Husbandry and Institute of Nutrition and Food Technology, Ohio State University, Columbus, and Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station, Wooster

A series of 3 experiments were undertaken to study the effects of crude soya lecithin and choline on the absorption, utilization and storage of vitamin A in laboratory rats. The following pertinent observations were made.

When 2% of the basal vitamin A-free diet consisted of lecithin ( or of the fat replaced by lecithin), greater weight gains during the depletion period were obtained than when 0.07% choline or a similar diet without added lecithin was fed. Limited data indicate that liver reserves of vitamin A were exhausted slightly more rapidly when the depletion diet contained added lecithin.

The feeding of lecithin during the depletion period had a slight, although not a statistically significant, carry-over effect in increasing the weight gains during the vitamin A repletion period. On the other hand, choline feeding during depletion resulted in significantly smaller weight gains during the following vitamin A repletion period.

The feeding of lecithin with a vitamin A or carotene supplement resulted in greater gains in weight and increased liver storage of vitamin A. When choline was fed with these supplements, the liver storage of vitamin A was no different from that of the groups which received the vitamin supplement alone.

At the levels fed, there was a greater percentage storage of vitamin A when ß-carotene was the supplement, although the weight gains of the vitamin A-supplemented groups were greater.

Females consistently stored more of the vitamin in the liver under all the dietary conditions studied.

The data indicate that lecithin enhances both the absorption and utilization of vitamin A and carotene. The choline fraction of the lecithin molecule is not responsible for this effect.

Manuscript received 28 April 1948.