Effect of dietary medium chain triglyceride on lipogenic enzyme activity in rat liver

This study was conducted to confirm that medium chain triglyceride (MCT) feeding itself would increase hepatic lipogenic enzyme activity without causing a lack of essential fatty acids (EFA) in the liver. Male weaning rats were fed for 11 weeks on diets containing 2% corn oil and 13% various fats: MCT, corn oil, tripalmitin or beef tallow, respectively. MCT feeding was clearly shown to increase the activities of fatty acid synthetase (FAS) and malic enzyme (ME) in the liver. Rats weighing 170 g were pair-fed for 7 days on diets containing 15% MCT, 13% MCT + 2% corn oil, 15% corn oil, and 2% corn oil and no fat (control groups), respectively, under a fixed level of carbohydrate (sucrose). The addition of 2% corn oil to MCT (13%) did not depress these enzyme activities, even though supplementing the fat-free diet with 2% corn oil resulted in a significant decline in the activities. When the rats received various amounts of MCT, the extent to which the degree of FAS and ME activities increased by MCT feeding depended on the amount of MCT in the dietary fat mixture with corn oil. Supplement of over 5% corn oil to MCT diets did not inhibit them sufficiently. In the liver lipids of animals fed MCT, there were no appearances of 20:3 omega 9 (5,8,11-eicosatrienoic acid), but the levels of mono-unsaturated fatty acids were increased by MCT feeding. The results suggest that MCT ingestion itself enhances lipogenic enzyme activity via some metabolic charge.