Hyperlipemia and early pancreatic injury induced by ethanol intake in rats

The pathogenesis of alcoholic pancreatitis is unknown, and even though hyperlipemia has been hypothesized to be a risk factor for alcoholic pancreatitis, no studies directly investigating whether there is a relationship between the two have ever been reported. Therefore, to determine if a relationship exists between hyperlipemia and alcoholic pancreatitis, especially the early stage of alcoholic pancreatic injury, we administered a regular liquid Lieber-DeCarli diet, with and without ethanol as 35% of total calories, to rats for 2 wk. Thereafter we measured their plasma lipid concentrations, pancreatic zymogen granule fragility, and plasma lipase activity and subsequently investigated the correlations between these parameters. Significant increases in plasma triglyceride, total cholesterol, phospholipid, nonesterified fatty acid, pancreatic zymogen granule fragility, and plasma lipase activity were observed in the ethanol liquid diet group, compared with the values of the control liquid diet group, and pancreatic zymogen granule fragility was correlated with plasma triglyceride (r=0.62), total cholesterol (r=0.77), phospholipid (r=0.76), nonesterified fatty acid concentrations (r=0.62), and lipase activity (r=0.63). These results show a possible relationship between hyperlipemia and the early stage of alcoholic pancreatic injury, and they may support the hypothesis that hyperlipemia contributes to the etiology of alcoholic pancreatitis.