Distribution of Unsaturated Fatty Acids in the Blood During Fat Absorption.

This paper considers the effect of the ingestion of olive oil on the distribution of unsaturated fatty acids in the plasma and corpuscles. Dogs were used as the experimental animals. After a 12 hour period of fasting, a specimen of blood was taken for analysis. A definite amount of olive oil was then given by stomach tube and additional specimens of blood were collected at the end of 2, 4 and 6 hours. Analyses were made of the plasma, as well as of the whole blood. These were treated with the alcohol-ether mixture, according to the well-known method of Bloor. To insure complete extraction of the lipids from the corpuscles, the extractions were repeated several times. The iodine number of the extracted lipids was determined by a micro-modification of Hanus' method, essentially as described by Gibson and Howard. 1 This procedure has been found to give reliable results both in previous work 2 and in the present experiments.

The results are represented by the curves in the accompanying figure. Dog I, weighing 7.3 kg., received 50 cc. of olive oil; Dog 2, weighing 15.6 kg., received 65 cc.; Dog 3, weighing 11.1 kg., received 60 cc.; Dog 4, weighing 7.5 kg., received 50 cc. As shown by the curves, the increase in concentration of unsaturated fatty acids was always greater in the corpuscles (C) than in the plasma (P). The increase, however, was very small considering the amounts of fat administered. Taking Dog 4 as an example, the volume of blood, assuming it to be approximately 8.5% of the body weight, was about 635 cc. The maximum increase in the concentration of the unsaturated fatty acids was observed in this case at the end of 4 hours after administration and amounted to 0.7 millimols of oleic acid per 100 cc. of whole blood.