Abstract
There is now much evidence that platelets are involved in intravascular clotting of blood. The “white head” of a thrombus is an aggregation of platelets that normally would not adhere to each other in the blood stream. Platelet adhesiveness and aggregation are therefore receiving increasing attention, and many studies have been conducted under in vitro conditions using a wide variety of agents (1–4).
Dietary fats have been implicated in the development of atherosclerosis and thrombosis in both animals and man. It has been well established that the composition and quantities of blood lipids in man are markedly influenced by dietary fat. Thus increasing attention is being given to relationships between dietary fats as well as blood lipids and such phenomena as platelet aggregation and thrombus formation. Among the plasma lipids that may be altered by changes in dietary fat are the unesterified fatty acids. Long chain fatty acids have been shown to promote thrombus formation in an in vitro system of flowing blood(5) and also when injected intravenously in dogs(6,7). It is important therefore to study the effects of various dietary fats and individual fatty acids on factors involved in platelet aggregation. Using a turbidimetric method, Haslam found in vitro that a saturated fatty acid, behenic, brought about rapid aggregation of washed human platelets under suitable conditions(8). Owren et al(9) have reported that the abnormal platelet adhesiveness in humans with known histories of cardiovascular disease is reduced to normal by oral administration of linseed oil or purified linolenic acid, and have presumed that the tendency toward thrombus formation in such subjects is thereby reduced also. In view of such findings, the effects of various saturated and unsaturated fatty acids, as well as their glyceryl esters, on platelet adhesiveness and aggregation in man and miniature pigs, is being studied in this laboratory.
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