Influence of the Type of Dietary Saturated Fatty Acid on Lipemia, Coagulation and the Production of Thrombosis in the Rat

Abstract

The degree of saturation of a dietary fat in a low protein diet and the resulting hypercholesterolemia or hypertriglyceridemia could not be correlated, in the rat, with the incidence of phlebothrombosis as initiated by a Salmonella typhosa endotoxin, nor to the recalcification plasma clotting time. To determine whether in a fat, it is the type of the saturated fatty acid rather than its degree of saturation that predisposes to thrombosis, various saturated fatty acids or their methyl esters were added to lard in the diet of the rat. Only the palmitic or stearic acid feeding resulted in a high incidence of thrombosis and a shortened clotting time, although the triglyceride levels in serum were approximately the same whichever fatty acid was fed. Under the present conditions, it appears therefore, that the thrombogenic capacity of a dietary fat depends primarily on the type of saturated fatty acids it contains. This thrombogenicity does not appear to be related to the concentration of cholesterol or triglycerides in serum, but possibly to the type of proteins these parameters were bound to. The plasma clotting time gave a good indication of the thrombotic tendency on a group basis.