Dietschy J M, Woollett L A, Spady D K
Department of Internal Medicine, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas 75235.
Ann N Y Acad Sci. 1993 Mar 15;676:11-26. doi: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.1993.tb38722.x.
From these brief considerations, it is clear that the steady-state LDL-cholesterol concentration is determined in a powerful way by the interaction of dietary cholesterol and specific fatty acids. There appear to be only a few saturated fatty acids and an even lesser number of unsaturated fatty acids that significantly interact with cholesterol in the liver cell to alter hepatic LDL receptor activity. These effects are uniformly seen in most experimental animals and in humans under circumstances where the experiments are properly designed. Future work is urgently needed to define the metabolic effects of the more unusual fatty acids (e.g., the trans fatty acid) and the more intimate details of how these substances regulate LDL receptor activity in the cell. It is also of considerable importance to extend these studies to the members of the same species that exhibit variable responses to these same dietary lipids. It is now clear that the magnitude of these specific responses to dietary cholesterol and specific fatty acids varies in different individuals with different genetic backgrounds from the same species. Elucidating the reasons for this variability is another area of research of considerable importance to human biology.
从这些简要的思考中可以清楚地看出，稳态低密度脂蛋白胆固醇浓度在很大程度上由膳食胆固醇和特定脂肪酸的相互作用所决定。似乎只有少数几种饱和脂肪酸，以及数量更少的不饱和脂肪酸，能在肝细胞中与胆固醇发生显著相互作用，从而改变肝脏低密度脂蛋白受体活性。在大多数实验动物以及设计合理的人体实验中，均能一致观察到这些效应。迫切需要开展进一步的研究，以明确更特殊的脂肪酸（如反式脂肪酸）的代谢效应，以及这些物质在细胞中调节低密度脂蛋白受体活性的更详细机制。将这些研究扩展到对相同膳食脂质表现出不同反应的同一物种成员也具有相当重要的意义。现在已经明确，来自同一物种、具有不同遗传背景的不同个体，对膳食胆固醇和特定脂肪酸的这些特定反应程度各不相同。阐明这种变异性的原因是对人类生物学具有相当重要意义的另一个研究领域。
