The effect of kind of dietary carbohydrate upon the composition of liver fatty acids of the rat.

Weanling male rats were fed fat-free diets containing either starch, sucrose, glucose or maltose as principal ingredient. One fourth of each group was fed oral supplements of linoleate. Subgroups of the fat-free groups were killed at 1, 3 and 6 weeks and the lmoleate supplemented group also at 6 weeks. Liver fatty acids were analyzed by gas chromatography. All groups showed changes in fatty acid composition characteristic of essential fatty acid deficiency, and linoleate reversed these changes. The three sugars induced similar compositions of liver fatty acids, but starch stimulated appearance of higher proportions of several odd-chain fatty acids. These included 15:0, 15:1, 17:0, 17:1, 17:2, 19:0, 19:1, 19:2, 19:3 and 19:4. These changes could not be accounted for by their content in the dietary starch.