Effect of dietary phytosterols on rat tissue lipids

The present study was designed to examine the incorporation of phytosterols (PS) in membranes and tissues of rats fed a diet containing 2% PS in the presence of 0.2% cholic acid for 22 days. The control diet contained 12 mg PS/100 g compared with 2,012 mg/100 g. Liver, kidney, testis, and prostate microsomes, plasma, and epididymal fat pads were examined for sterols. Fatty acid composition and phospholipid pattern were also examined in some tissues. The PS diet resulted in a fivefold increase in plasma PS compared with controls. PS was found to accumulate in adipose tissue and liver microsomes in rats fed the PS-supplemented diet. There was no effect of PS incorporation on microsomal cholesterol content, except in the testes, in which dietary PS reduced cholesterol content by 25%. Dietary PS increased 20:4n-6 and 22:5n-3 fatty acids in membranes of the liver, testis, and prostate but decreased 16:1 in liver microsomes. PS incorporation had no effect on the phospholipid pattern of the liver and testis.