Effect of dietary fat on the response of the rat retina to chronic and acute light stress.

We designed an experiment to study the role of light history and polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) on the susceptibility of the albino rat retina to light damage. Albino rats were born to dams that had been kept in either 1 lx or 250 lx cyclic light for 0–4 days prior to delivery and fed one of three diets containing either 10% (by weight) hydrogenated coconut oil (COC, no n-3 nor n-6 fatty acids), safflower oil (SAF, high n-6,