The Influence of Dietary Fat Levels on Fecal Tocopherols

We hypothesize that fecal vitamin E may play an important role in preventing colon cancer by inhibiting the generation of mutagens arising from the oxidation of fecal lipids. In this study, male Fischer-344 rats were fed high (HF with 14.5 wt% corn oil and 1 wt% cholesterol) or low fat diets (LF with 5% corn oil) containing alpha-tocopherol (100 lU/kg or 0.156 mmol/kg ), gamma-tocopherol (0.156 mmol/kg) or no tocopherols (-E). The corn oil was tocopherol stripped. We found that rats fed the diets containing RRR-gamma-tocopherol had dramatically higher fecal levels of tocopherol than rats fed the corresponding diets containing the same level (on a mmol/kg basis) of RRR-alpha-tocopherol. Moreover, rats fed the HF diets had higher levels of fecal tocopherol levels than did rats fed the LF diets. These data may help explain the epidemioîogical evidence suggesting that consumption of vegetable fat, unlike animal fat, is not associated with an increased risk of colon cancer. Vegetable fat, unlike animal fat, has a high content of gamma-tocopherol. This research was support by a grant from Eastman Chemical Co