Effect of fat and carbohydrate sources at low calcium level on lipid metabolism in rats

ABSTRACT

The experiment was designed to study the effect of feeding diets containing either sucrose or starch and corn oil or ghee [butter oil] with two levels of calcium 0.25 [low] or 0.5% [adequate] on lipid metabolism in male rats, in a completely randomized design with treatments in a 2 x 2 x 2 factorial arrangement. The type of fat did not affect the serum total cholesterol levels at 0.5% calcium level, and had no effect on the percentage of cholesterol carried by serum different lipoproteins in all diets. Otherwise, corn oil compared with ghee reduced serum total lipids, triacylglycerol, phospholipids and total cholesterol [at 0.25% Ca] in sucrose diets, and serum total lipids and triacylglycerol [at 0.5% Ca] and total cholesterol [at 0.25% Ca] in starch diets. Feeding of sucrose diets resulted in significantly higher levels of serum different lipids compared with starch diets and its effect was very high in presence of saturated fat. The effect of sucrose in increasing heart lipids was higher using corn oil more than ghee. In liver triacylglycerol and total cholesterol were decreased by sucrose in ghee diets and increased in oil diets. Decreasing dietary calcium level resulted in increased serum lipids concentrations in animals fed the ghee-sucrose diet and decreased the percentage of LDL-cholesterol from 50 to 26 in the oil starch group