Dietary fatty acids composition modulates oxidative stress and cellular injury in the liver of CBrCl3 intoxicated rats

Oxidative stress is a multifactorial event that has been proposed to be involved in the aethyology of a large number of human pathologies. The fatty acid composition of dietary lipid has been reported as one of major factors capable of modulating oxidative stress. In this paper we assess the effect of different types of dietary lipids on microsome fatty acids composition and on the oxidative stress induced by the administration of CBrCl3. Three groups of rats were fed different experimental diets providing 20% of energy from lipid derived by olive, coconut, and sunflower oils. Membrane fatty acid composition and antioxidant vitamins was determined at the end of six weeks diet. The dietary induced changes of membrane fatty acids composition were associated with different susceptibility to oxidative stress and cell damage, as assessed by conjugated dienes and cytosolic enzyme release respectively following CBrCl3 intoxication. Feeding the CO diet leads to a low susceptibility to lipid peroxidation, but is associated with cell injury significantly higher than that observed in the other dietary treatments. No association was demonstrated between the extent of membrane lipid peroxidation and liver cell damage.