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Departments of * General Internal Medicine, 
Gastroenterology, and
Endocrinology of the Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Nettherlands;
Gaubius Laboratory, TNO-PG, Leiden, The Nettherlands; and ** Center for Liver, Intestinal and Metabolic Diseases, Academic Hospital Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
2 To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: a.h.m.smelt{at}lumc.nl.
| ABSTRACT |
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KEY WORDS: triglycerides bezafibrate fish oil bile acid synthesis hypertriglyceridemia
Hypertriglyceridemia (HTG)3 is associated with cardiovascular disease (1), pancreatitis (2) and cholesterol gallstone formation (3,4). The disorder is characterised by elevated plasma TG concentrations, mainly in very-low-density-lipoprotein (VLDL), low levels of HDL-cholesterol, and insulin resistance. Several studies have addressed cholesterol (58), and bile acid metabolism (6,914) in HTG, mainly in relation to the increased risk for gallstone disease. In general, these studies revealed the presence of bile supersaturated with cholesterol (12,15) as well as increased cholesterol and bile acid synthesis in HTG (3,712).
Fibrates are commonly used in the treatment of HTG patients in order to prevent cardiovascular disease by lowering TG levels (16). However, fibrates may increase the risk for cholelithiasis (1719) by increasing biliary cholesterol saturation (20) through increased biliary cholesterol secretion and inhibition of bile acid synthesis (21,22). Fish oil, that also effectively lowers plasma TG levels (23), has been shown to have profound favorable effects on cardiovascular risk (24) and is a therapeutic alternative for fibrates in HTG patients (25). However, the effects of fish oil on cholesterol synthesis and bile acid metabolism in humans are unknown. Therefore the aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of hypertriglyceridemia (HTG) on cholesterol synthesis and bile acid metabolism as well as to compare triglyceride-lowering therapy by bezafibrate and fish oil on cholesterol synthesis and bile acid metabolism in patients with HTG.
| SUBJECTS AND METHODS |
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The study started with the assessment of baseline values in both controls and HTG patients: fasting blood samples were taken for determination of lathosterol and cholesterol concentrations at visit 1. At visit 2 (one wk later) fasting blood samples were taken for the assessment of serum lipids and bile acids, after which measurement of bile acid kinetics was started as detailed below. For this purpose, during 5 consecutive days postprandial morning and evening blood samples were taken. Hereafter, HTG patients were randomized to receive in a cross-over fashion either bezafibrate (Bezalip retard®, Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd, Basel, Switzerland), 400 mg once daily or fish oil 5 g/day (Triomar®, Lube, Hadsund, Denmark; containing 3.6 g (n3) fatty acids (eiconsapentaenoic acid, C20:5(n3) 1.9 g and docosahexaenoic acid C22:6(n3) 1.1 g)) for 7 wk. These two treatment periods were separated by a 6-wk washout period without lipid-lowering medication. At the onset and in week 7 of the treatment periods fasting blood samples were obtained. Serum lipids and cholesterol synthesis were investigated in week 6, whereas in week 7 of each treatment period bile acids synthesis was determined. Informed consent was obtained from each participant and the protocol was approved by the Medical Ethics Committee of the Leiden University Medical Center.
Sample collection and lipid analysis. Blood sampling and serum lipid, glucose, insulin and total bile acid analyses were performed as described previously (25,27). Insulin resistance was assessed using the homeostasis model approximation (HOMA) by the following formula: insulin resistance = insulin/(22.5e-lnglucose).
Cholesterol synthesis. The serum lathosterol to cholesterol ratio was used as indicator of cholesterol synthesis (28). Total (free and esterified) serum cholesterol was measured colorimetrically, whereas total lathosterol was assayed by gas-liquid chromatography (28).
Bile acid synthesis and pool sizes. Participants had a standardized breakfast (3263 kJ, 50 g fat, 42 g protein, 38 g carbohydrates) at the research department at 0830 AM. At 1030 AM a blood sample was taken to determine the isotope distribution of endogenous bile acids. Thereafter, 50 mg [2,2,4,4-2H4] Cholic Acid (CA) and 50 mg [2,2,4,4-2H4] Chenodeoxycholic Acid (CDCA) (CDN Isotopes, Ponte-Claire, Quebec, Canada) dissolved in 200 mL 0.5% NaHCO3 were taken. On the next 5 d blood samples were taken 2 h after both breakfast and diner.
Deuterium enrichments for both CA and CDCA were measured simultaneously in 50 µL plasma samples by gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC/MS), selected ion-monitoring (29) applying negative ion chemical ionization (NICI). Some modifications were necessary to overcome problems due to the high triglyceride concentration in plasma of the patients. This affected the stability in recovery, chromatographic peak shape and retention time as well as the stability in mass spectrometry performance. Therefore, the protocol was modified as follows. The sample obtained after enzymatic deconjugation (29) of 200 µL plasma was extracted twice with 4 mL hexane to remove neutral lipids. Thereafter the residual sample was acidified and extracted with diethylether to continue the original protocol. The gas chromatography separation was slightly modified using a 2 m x 0.25 mm (0.25µm film thickness) OV1701 column (CPSil 19CB, Chrompack BV, Middelburg, The Netherlands) as a guard column between the injector and the 15m x 0.25 mm (0.25µm film thickness) DB5ms (J&W Scientific, Folsom, CA, U.S.A.) analytical column as described. These modifications improved the long-time stability of the measurements. The selected ion monitoring parameters were extended for the measurement of isotope enrichment for chenodeoxycholic acid PFB TMS derivative: m/z 535 and 539.
Calculations. From the isotope enrichment the pool size, the fractional turnover rate and the synthesis rate were calculated for CA and CDCA (30). From the calculated CA and CDCA pool sizes and the fraction of deoxycholic acid (DCA) in the biliary bile acid profile, the DCA pool size was determined. The total bile acid synthesis was calculated as the sum of the CA synthesis rate and CDCA synthesis rate.
Data and statistical analysis.
Results are expressed as means ± SEM. Differences between the HTG patients and controls were tested using the Mann-Whitney-U-test. Differences between HTG patients at baseline and after bezafibrate or fish oil therapy were evaluated by ANOVA and the post-hoc LSD test. Linear regression analysis was performed to identify whether insulin, glucose or insulin resistance as group-associated confounders contributed to the results. P-values
0.05 were considered significant.
| RESULTS |
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Bezafibrate therapy did not affect fasting glucose, fasting insulin levels and the degree of insulin resistance (Table 1). In contrast, fish oil significantly increased all three compared to both baseline (+7%, P = 0.023; +36%, P = 0.007 and +44%, P = 0.01, respectively) and to bezafibrate therapy (+7%, P = 0.02, +39%, P = 0.006 and +49%, P = 0.007, respectively, Table 1).
Cholesterol synthesis. Cholesterol synthesis was higher in HTG patients than in age-, sex- and BMI-matched controls as deduced from the 107% higher ratio of serum lathosterol to cholesterol (Fig. 1, P = 0.008). Fish oil did not affect cholesterol synthesis in HTG patients, whereas bezafibrate therapy decreased this ratio compared to baseline (25%, P = 0.009) as well as to after fish oil therapy (22%, P = 0.024, Fig. 1). Regression analysis showed that serum glucose and insulin concentrations and insulin resistance did not contribute to the increased cholesterol synthesis in HTG patients (all P > 0.23).
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| DISCUSSION |
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In line with earlier studies (58), HTG patients showed an increased cholesterol synthesis in comparison to controls even after correction for BMI (intrinsically by BMI-matching) and insulin resistance (by regression analysis). At first sight these data conflict the study of Duane et al. demonstrating that cholesterol synthesis did not differ from BMI-matched controls in comparison with patients with FHTG (31). However, it should be noted that this study focused on FHTG, a genetically distinct entity of HTG. Furthermore, one outlier in the control group of that study markedly influenced the results, and exclusion of this outlier revealed a tendency to increased cholesterol synthesis in FHTG as well.
Bile acid synthesis, fractional turnover rates and bile acid pool sizes did not significantly differ in HTG patients compared to those of controls, disputing earlier studies, demonstrating increased bile acid FTR (10,12) and increased bile acid synthesis (6,912,14) in HTG patients. However, in these studies there were large inter-individual differences with regard to abnormalities in bile acid metabolism (14) Moreover, in those studies HTG patients had higher BMIs than controls and obesity itself is associated with increased bile acid synthesis (32,33), whereas weight reduction is associated with reduced bile acid synthesis in HTG (34). The lack of significant differences in our study might be explained by the fact that HTG patients were compared to BMI-matched controls. In addition, it could be that we did not observe differences in bile acid metabolism in HTG patients due to the small-sample size of our study population. However, we assume that large differences would have been noted in our study.
Earlier studies showed reductions in both cholesterol- and bile acid synthesis upon fibrate therapy in both humans (21,22) and mice (35). These effects may be explained by fibrates-induced PPAR
-mediated down-regulation of cholesterol 7
-hydroxylase and sterol 27-hydroxylase gene expression (22), whereas fibrates have been shown to diminish cholesterol biosynthesis through inhibition of HMG CoA- synthase as well as HMG CoA reductase (36). In our study we did not observe a decrease in bile acid synthesis during bezafibrate therapy, which may be due to the small sample size of the study.
The hypotriglyceridemic effect of fish oil is well known (23) and confirmed in our study. In contrast, the effect of fish oil on insulin-resistance is less cIear: some studies observed no effect (37), whereas others, similar to our observation documented an increase in insulin resistance upon fish oil (38).
This is the first study describing the effects of fish oil on bile acid synthesis in humans, whereas only scarce data are available in animals. In rats, fish oil has been shown to increase cholesterol secretion into bile (39,40), and to increase bile acid pool size and synthesis rate (41), although others found no effect on bile acid synthesis in rats (39) or hamsters (42). Furthermore, fish oil increased cholesterol 7
-hydroxylase gene expression in mice (43). These differences in bile acid metabolism may be due to the animal model used (44). In the present study fish oil increased bile acid synthesis, specifically CA synthesis in comparison to both baseline and bezafibrate. This observation is of interest, since over the past years several groups suggested a reciprocal relationship between TG synthesis and bile acid synthesis: upon treatment with bile acid-binding resins serum TG concentration increased (45,46) whereas upon treatment with CDCA TG levels decreased (47,48). To the best of our knowledge this is the first study describing divergent effects on serum triglyceride levels and bile acid synthesis, suggesting that the coupling between bile acid synthesis and triglyceride synthesis may not be as direct as previously suggested and may involve alternative mechanisms. The mechanism behind the hypotriglyceridemic action of fish oil is unknown. Whereas the hypotriglyceridemic effect of fibrates is attributed to activation of PPAR
, experiments with PPAR
knock-out mice (49) showed that the triglyceride lowering effect of fish oil was not abolished, indicating that this action of fish oil is not mediated by PPAR
. Recently, it was reported that fish oil may decrease hepatic VLDL production by stimulating apoB degradation via post-ER-pre-secretory proteolysis or PERPP (50). Further studies are required to elucidate the underlying mechanism of triglyceride-lowering in relation to bile acid synthesis upon fish oil treatment.
In conclusion, the current study demonstrates that in HTG patients cholesterol synthesis was increased compared to BMI matched controls, while bile acid pool size and synthesis were similar in both groups. In HTG patients however, bezafibrate significantly reduced cholesterol synthesis, without a significant effect on bile acid synthesis. Fish oil exerted similar TG-lowering capacities, increased bile acid synthesis, without affecting cholesterol synthesis.
| FOOTNOTES |
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3 Abbreviations used: CA, cholic acid; CDCA, chenodeoxycholic acid; CVD, cardiovascular disease; CYP7A1, cholesterol 7
-hydroxylase; DCA, deoxycholic acid; FTR, fractional turnover rate; HDL-C, HDL cholesterol; HOMA, homeostasis model approximation; HTG, hypertriglyceridemia; PPAR, peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor. ![]()
Manuscript received 3 November 2005. Initial review completed 29 November 2005. Revision accepted 1 January 2006.
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