Effect of dietary palmitate, stearate, oleate and linoleate on the tissue lipid and systolic blood pressure of the rat.

The nutritional effects of palmitate, stearate, oleate and linoleate were correlated with the percentage of each fatty acid in the dietary lipid but were found to be largely independent of the total amount of fat in the diet. Increasing the proportion of linoleate in diet fat to levels as high as 52% of the fat, increased theproportion of fat observed in the carcass. Increased linoleate and/or oleate resulted in increased concentrations of cholesterol in body fat deposits. The maximum weight of the perirenal fat pads occurred when diet fat contained about 43% oleate and 19% stearate. Increasing the stearate decreased the cholesterol concentration in plasma. The systolic blood pressure was decreased slightly when the amount of diet fat was increased.