Studies on Human Bile II: Influence of two different fats on the composition of human bile

Abstract

Ten young volunteer subjects were given diets in which the main fat component was either butter fat or the fat of a dietetic margarine containing close to 40 per cent of linoleic acid.All the subjects received the butter diet through a period of 3 weeks. Immediately thereafter, eight of the subjects received the margarine diet for one or two consecutive periods of 3 weeks (± 1 day), whereas two of the subjects continued on the butter diet for two additional periods of 3 weeks each.Before the experiment and after each dietary period, duodenal bile was collected (after cholecystokinin injection) and analyzed with respect to dry matter, pH, cholesterol, lipid-soluble phosphorus, bile acids, the individual phospholipids and the fatty acid pattern of bile lecithin.The bile produced under the influence of the butter diet consistently contained close to twenty or twenty odd per cent of linoleic acid in the total fatty acids of the lecithin, whereas the corresponding figure for the bile produced under the influence of the margarine diet was thirty or thirty odd per cent.The ratios between total bile acids and cholesterol and between lipid-soluble phosphorus and cholesterol did not show any definite change in a direction favoring the solubility of cholesterol by substituting margarine for butter.