Effect of dietary supplementation with stearic acid on the severity of myocardial lesions.

Histological studies were conducted on ventricular myocardium obtained from male rats of the Sprague-Dawley strain after 16 weeks of feeding diets containing 20 per cent (w/w) soybean oil, low erucic acid rapeseed oil or high erucic acid rapeseed oil. Additional groups of rats were fed similar diets supplemented with up to 8 g/kg of tristearin. Increasing dietary intake of stearic acid normalised the plasma ratio of C16:0 to C18:0 for rapeseed oil treatments to ratios analogous to that observed for rats fed soybean oil. Tristearin supplementation did not have a significant effect on myocardial lesion incidence but decreased the severity of lesions observed for rapeseed oil treatments.