FACTORS AFFECTING RATE OF ABSORPTION 187 



Another experimental procedure which has been employed to demon- 

 strate the effect of lecithin on the absorption of fat is a test of the suscepti- 

 bility of rats to diarrhea after the feeding of large doses of fat. This effect 

 is summarized in Table 28. In the lecithin tests, fat containing 20% of 

 crude lecithin (or 12% of phospholipids) was used. 



Table 28 



Incidence of Diarrhea in Fasting Female Rats after Being Fed Fats without 



or with Lecithin" 



Fat fed alone Fat fed with lecithin 

 Length 



« V. Augur, H. S. Rollman, and H. J. Deuel, Jr., J. Nutrition, S3, 177-186 (1947). 



b Male rats used in these tests. 



c Dosage in lecithin group was 374 mg./lOO sq. cm. 



In a grand total of fifty tests in which fat was fed without lecithin, 

 diarrhea developed in twenty cases; this is an incidence of 40%. On the 

 other hand, only four rats of the total of forty used in the tests with the 

 lecithin-containing fat presented diarrhea. This corresponds to 10%, 

 which is only one-fourth of the incidence noted in the tests on the fat with- 

 out added lecithin. 



Another possible explanation for the augmentation of the rate of fat 

 absorption as caused by lecithin may be its choline content. Tidwell 663 

 reported that choline administered orally or parenterally was active in 

 accelerating the absorption of fat. He suggested that choline might be the 

 limiting factor in the resynthesis of phospholipid in the intestinal cells. 

 This process was considered to be essential, in accordance with the Lipolytic 

 Theory of fat absorption. In a later report by Tidwell and Nagler, 600 

 the rate of absorption of fats from the intestine of normal orally fed rats 

 was found to be unaffected by 6% or 20% supplements of a number of exo- 

 genous emulsifiers. It is suggested that the action of lecithin in promoting 

 fat absorption may best be explained by some property other than its emul- 

 sifying action. 



