Effect of Dietary Lipids on the Lipids in Rats'Milk.

Abstract

Spectrophoto-metric determinations of alkali-isomerized lipids in milk collected from rats in the late stages of the lactation period showed that the polyenoic acid content of the milk fat was markedly affected by the dietary intake of unsaturated fatty esters. The milk fat from rats whose diet contained 0.25% methyllinoleate (as the urea complex) as the only dietary lipid, contained 1.9, 0.71 and 0.35% respectively of unconjugated dienoic, trienoic and tetraenoic acids. When the diet contained 3% of vegetable oil the milk fat contained 6.7, 1.02 and 0.84% of these acids. Pooled milk fat from rats consuming a natural diet which contained 3.6% of dienoic acid contained as much as 36.8% of dienoic acid.