Kinetic measurement techniques in the evaluation of lipid metabolism

Lipid metabolism plays a critical role in health, and there are a variety of methodologies available to investigators to determine how rates of metabolic processes respond to drugs and other interventions aimed at altering lipid metabolism. Commonly the abundance of lipids in the body is measured (e.g., plasma lipoprotein concentrations), but this static measure offers only a limited view on the dynamics and complexity of lipid metabolism as it pertains to health and disease. The synthesis and clearance rates of lipoproteins provide critical information pertaining to cardiovascular disease, and the mobilization of triglyceride and fatty acids and partitioning between metabolic fates affects the body composition and other aspects of health. Various techniques are available to measure the kinetics of lipid metabolism including stable isotope approaches, radio-isotope approaches, and non-isotopic approaches. The focus of this review is to describe various techniques for evaluating lipid kinetics in animal models and humans using isotopes as well as other techniques, and recent advances are highlighted.