Abstract
Summary
Male rats were accustomed to a two-meal-a-day feeding pattern of diets containing either medium-chain triglycerides (MCT) or long-chain triglycerides (LCT). Fat comprised 40% of calories in these diets. Before the morning meal, rats fed the MCT diet had higher blood ketone and plasma nonesterified fatty acid levels and lower blood glucose and plasma triglyceride levels than the LCT-fed rats, suggesting that the MCT-fed rats may have been in the postabsorptive state for a longer time.
After the rats received the morning feeding, the MCT-fed rats showed a rapid decline in plasma NEFA levels and a greater rise in blood glucose levels than LCT-fed rats. The high fasting blood ketone levels decreased in both groups, but the MCT-fed rats maintained a higher level than the LCT-fed rats even after the meals.
Postprandial hypertriglyceridemia was observed in both groups. However, in the MCT-fed rats the triglyceride level returned to the fasting level by 2 hr after the meal; whereas the hypertriglyceridemia was sustained for at least 5 hr after the meal in the LCT-fed rats. This finding probably relates to the more rapid and complete digestion of MCT compared to LCT.
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