ABSTRACT
Aiming at studying the effect of various types of dietary fats on serum lipids cotton seed oil, RBD palm olein, buffalo ghee and corn oil were given at 10% of the basal diet to weanling rats for 4 weeks. Rats fed corn oil were taken as control group. Buffalo ghee was found to cause the highest increase in body weight, food intake and food efficiency ratio. The control corn oil group showed the lowest values regarding body weight gain and food efficiency ratio, while intermediate levels were given by RBD palm olein and cotton seed oil groups. Serum total lipids, triglycerides, total cholesterol presented the highest increase with the ghee group. However, the cotton seed group had the lowest values for the previous parameters except for serum triglycerides. Significant increase in serum total lipids, triglycerides than control group was given by RBD palm olein group, however, this increase is less than that of the ghee group. Total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol and HDL cholesterol levels were lower than levels of the control group. Histopathological examination revealed that in cotton seed oil group hepatocytes were normal in all the cases. In palm oil and buffalo ghee group 1/3 of the cells were normal while the rest showed focal hydropic degeneration. The reverse was observed with the corn oil group