Growth and lipid metabolism responses in rats fed different dietary fat sources

An experiment with male albino rats was conducted to examine the effect of dietary fat sources on growth performance and apparent digestibility of total fat and fatty acids. The effect on plasma and organ cholesterol concentrations as well as lipoproteins cholesterol and fatty acid profile of hepatic phospholipids was also examined. Forty 3 week old rats were fed purified diets containing 0.041% cholesterol and 7% fat (wt/wt) from soy oil (SO), or cow ghee (GH), or 25% fish oil (FO) plus soy oil (SF) or 25% fish oil plus 75% ghee (GF), or 50% soy oil plus 50% ghee (SG) for a period of 35 days. Final body weight, weight gain, organ weights and feed efficiency ratio showed no significant differences (P < 0.05) among the dietary treatments. The apparent digestibility of total dietary fat and saturated fatty acids in the animals fed diet containing cow ghee only or in combination with fish oil or soy oil was significantly lower than the other dietary groups. Consumption of ghee with combination of fish oil or soy oil lead to significant improvement in the fat apparent digestibility of dietary fat. Total cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations of plasma and organs as well as lipoprotein cholesterol levels were higher in animals fed diets containing ghee. For rats fed diet containing cow ghee in combination with fish oil or soy oil, the cholesterol content of total plasma, lipoprotein fractions (VLDL, LDL and HDL) and organs was decreased significantly. Furthermore, dietary fats altered the fatty acids composition of hepatic phospholipid fatty acids composition. Feeding dietary fish oil reduced arachidonic acid (20:4) and increased linoleic acid (18:2) and eicosapentaenoic acid (20:5) contents. The reduction in the arachidonic acid was being more pronounced in animals fed dietary ghee with combination of fish oil.