Results of linseed oil and olive oil therapy in hyperlipoproteinemia patients

: Only few informations exist on the effect of different oils and the transformation of these precursor fatty acids to prostaglandins in patients with hyperlipoproteinemia. Therefore we investigated the impact of linseed oil and olive oil intake resp. on serum lipoprotein levels, platelet aggregation and fatty acid pattern of serum phospholipids and triglycerides resp. in patients with primary hypercholesterolemia (HC) (n = 13) and hypertriglyceridemia (HTG) (n = 16). The probands were randomly admitted to a 4 week test period with 30 ml olive or linseed oil intake. After linseed or olive oil intake all lipid fractions did not change significantly. Olive oil significantly reduced the platelet aggregation only in patients with HTG, whereas linseed oil failed to influence aggregation. After linseed oil intake there was a significant increase in linolenic and also in eicosapentaenoic acid content of phospholipids in patients with HTG. In contrast to HTG in HC linseed oil only increased significantly the linolenic acid fraction. Our data suggest, that the response of serum lipoproteins, fatty acids and platelet aggregation on modifications in dietary fats depends on the type of lipoprotein disorder.