Studies on the distribution of lipides in hypercholesteremic rats. I. The effect of feeding palmitate, oleate, linoleate, linolenate, menhaden and tuna oils

Abstract The effect of feeding highly unsaturated fatty acids, or precursors of such polyenoic acids, to hypercholesteremic rats was a marked and rapid depression of plasma cholesterol. This was accompanied by an accumulation of the higher polyenoic acids in heart lipides and in the phospholipides of the liver. The observed effect could not be related to any of the recognized types of essential fatty acid activity.