American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol 12, 431-436, Copyright © 1963 by The American Society for Clinical Nutrition, Inc.

Liver and Depot Lipids in Children on Normal and High Carbohydrate Diets

¹ From the Department of Physiology, Guy's Hospital Medical School, London, England

The alterations with increasing liver lipid seen in the liver and depot lipids of children who had calorie protein malnutrition are compared with those of the control subjects, that is children whose death was not primarily due to malnutrition. The differences are as follows: (1) there is an increase in the amount of all liver glycerides and phospholipid in the malnourished group, whereas in the control group there is only an increase in the triglycerides; (2) there is an increase in the proportion of palmitoleic acid and a decrease in the proportion of linoleic acid in liver fatty acids in the malnourished group, whereas no proportional changes are seen in any of the liver fatty acids in the control group; (3) similar changes are seen in the fatty acids of the depot lipid and the liver in the malnourished groups, whereas the palmitic and palmitoleic acids increased and the oleic acid increased in the depot lipid of the control group; and (4) in both groups the main accumulation of liver lipid was triglycerides.

The amount of linoleic acid in this fraction increases in samples from Nigeria but not in those from Jamaica. It is suggested that these findings may confirm experimental work in which dietary sucrose is associated with lower levels of linoleic acid than dietary starch.