Preventive and curative studies on the ‘cholesterol fatty liver’ of rats

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Abstract
-Crystalline cholesterol was added at different concentrations (0.2, 0.4, 0.8 and 1.6%) to a hypolipotropic diet. The livers of rats fed these rations and of other rats fed similar rations containing various lipotropic supplements were analysed for lipid content. At moderate intakes of cholesterol (0.2%) sufficient dietary choline or betaine were able to prevent the excessive deposition of both glycerides and cholesteryl esters. In rats consuming diets rich in cholesterol, even considerable concentrations of choline (1.28%) in the diet failed to prevent an excessive accumulation of cholesteryl esters in the livers. In a curative experiment, betaine hydrochloride at a concentration of 0.42% in the diet was about as active as an equimolecular amount of choline in hastening the removal of glycerides and cholesteryl esters from "cholesterol fatty livers." The limited data suggest that had the effect of lower dosages been compared, betaine would have been less effective than choline. Vitamin B12 exerted a considerable curative lipotropic action on the glycerides but much less on the cholesteryl ester fraction of liver lipids. Inositol was without any appreciable lipotropic effect on either fraction in either type of study.