Essential Fatty Acid Deficiency

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Abstract
Adult male rats were fed a low-fat (1%) EFA-free diet for 29 weeks. During this phase of the experiment, groups were supplemented with 1% of cholesterol or 0.5% of cholic acid or both. In the second phase (29th through 52nd week), all groups except low-fat controls were fed a diet containing 20% of hydrogenated coconut oil without the previous supplements. Dermal symptoms of EFA deficiency developed very slowly in rats fed the low-fat, EFA-free diet, reaching a maximum at 35 weeks, followed by spontaneous curing. Supplementation with cholesterol or cholic acid or both had little effect upon the severity of the dermal symptoms or upon growth. The use of the EFA-free diet with or without hypercholesterolemic stresses resulted in high contents of trienoic acid in heart and testis tissues and low contents of dienoic acid. Feeding 20% hydrogenated coconut oil resulted in increased dienoic acid and somewhat decreased trienoic acid contents of heart tissue. After 29 weeks of supplementation with cholesterol plus cholic acid, 4 of the 6 animals in this group were found to have lipide deposits in the coronary arteries. This group also had very high plasma cholesterol levels. At the end of the 52nd week, sudanophilia of the serum was visible in frozen sections of hearts from rats which had been fed 20% hydrogenated coconut oil during the second phase of the experiment (23rd week).