Lipid excretion by bile fistula dogs on a lipid-free diet.

Abstract

Previous work 1 has indicated that, contrary to the generally accepted view, the fecal lipids (particularly the sterols) do not reach the intestine by way of the bile, but enter it below the absorbing portion. In order to shed further light upon this question, bile fistula operations have been performed upon 3 of the normal dogs used in previous work with essentially lipid-free diets 1 , 2 and these animals have been employed in similar experiments, the results obtained while the dogs were still normal, serving as controls. In the case of 2 of the animals, 6 such control experiments had been carried out, while 13 were available in the case of the 3rd. No attempt was made to keep the bile tract sterile in one of the animals, and there was considerable infection during the experiment. The dog ate well, however, appeared normal, and maintained its weight. There was no essential difference in the results from this animal and those from the others in which the bile tract was kept sterile. During the experiments the dogs were prevented from licking the bile either by means of a muzzle (in one experiment with the infected dog) or by collection of the bile in a balloon kept in place by a binder. There was no marked loss of weight in any case.

The diet was biased on the work of Cowgill 3 and contained casein (23.2 parts), sugar (50.0 parts), bone ash (1.4 parts), Liebig's meat extract (1.8 parts), salt mixture (1 part), and Vitavose∗ (2.2 parts). The casein was continuously extracted with hot alcohol for several days, and that used in most of the experiments contained [less than 2 parts of lipids in 10,000 as determined by digestion of the protein with strong alkali for 24 hours, followed by acidification and extraction with ether and petroleum ether.