Forty-four institutionalized elderly subjects with body mass indexes (BMI) of either > or = 24 or < or = 21 participated in a 16-wk crossover study designed to determine the effects of low-dose zinc supplementation [306 mumol (20 mg)/d] on food intake, anthropometry, and biochemical and immunological indexes. Initial serum zinc concentrations were low in both groups and increased by approximately 20% after zinc supplementation. Zinc supplementation allowed a partial but significant restoration of serum thymulin activity and improved nutritional status (food intake and serum albumin and transthyretin concentrations) but had no effect on anthropometric indexes or serum apolipoproteins, except apolipoprotein CII and apolipoprotein CIII. After zinc supplementation, serum copper concentration decreased but there was no change in the ratio of low-density-lipoprotein cholesterol to high-density-lipoprotein cholesterol. Low-dose zinc supplementation allows restoration, at least partially, of nutritional and thymic status without the known disadvantages of high doses of zinc.

1. Four groups of rats were fed for 49 d on one of four semi-purified diets, without added cholesterol and containing 230 g/kg of the following isolated proteins: casein, whey, soya-bean or sunflower.2. Whey, soya-bean and sunflower proteins, when compared with casein, decreased the level of serum high-density-lipoprotein (HDL)-cholesterol. These low cholesterol levels were accompanied by an increase in the daily faecal excretion of neutral sterols and bile acids in the case of soya-bean protein, and by a decrease in the liver cholesterol content, when rats were fed on whey protein.3. Considering the amino acid composition of the four purified proteins, we observed that serum total and HDL-cholesterol levels had a significant positive correlation with tyrosine and glutamic acid, and a negative correlation with cystine and alanine.4. The present study showed that the hypocholesterolaemic effect of dietary proteins was not related to their animal or vegetable origin.

The relations between the fatty acids of cholesterol esters and some cardiovascular risk factors have been investigated in a sample of 3,348 middle-aged men examined at entry into the Paris Prospective Study 2. The partial associations between the risk factors and the various fatty acids have been evaluated using a special regression method that takes into account the structural dependencies among the percentages of fatty acids. The results show that palmitoleic acid is strongly associated with alcohol consumption and blood pressure and that its association with blood pressure is absent in nondrinkers. High density lipoprotein cholesterol and apolipoprotein A1 are negatively associated with palmitic and dihomogammalinolenic acids and positively associated with oleic and linoleic acids. An inverse relation of low density lipoprotein cholesterol and apolipoprotein B to these fatty acids is also observed. Simultaneous high levels of palmitic and dihomogammalinolenic acids and low levels of oleic and linoleic acids could then be related to profiles of lipids and apolipoproteins exposing one to a high risk of coronary heart disease. These associations may be of interest in interpreting the relations observed in other studies between the fatty acid composition of cholesterol esters or other lipids and coronary heart disease.

Summary. To detect the response of different strains of rats to an hypercholesterolemic diet, 9 different strains of male rats were fed successively a control diet (C) containing 20 % casein for 4 weeks, then a high-protein, cholesterol-rich diet (HC) containing 50 % casein and 1.2 % cholesterol for 12 weeks. When the rats were fed the control diet, the highest cholesterolemia was found in the LOU strain and the lowest in the WAG and Brown-Norway (BN) strains. The latter strain had the highest free to esterified cholesterol ratio and showed a marked band in a position (LDL) on agarose gel electrophoresis.Administration of the HC diet induced an increase of cholesterolemia in all the strains except in Fisher (FIS) and LOU. This hypercholesterolemic diet decreased the free to esterified cholesterol ratio only in the BN and FIS strains. On agarose gel, all the strains showed a highly increased band in pre-/3 position (VLDL). On polyacrylamide gel, a single, tight band in HDL position was revealed in the BN strain, while a large band or two bands were seen in the other strains. The percentages of some apoproteins in serum total lipoproteins were determined in rats fed the HC diet ; the apoprotein E level was inversely correlated to the difference between the cholesterolemia of the rats given the HC and C diets (r = -0.72 ; P < 0.051. So, the BN rats had the lowest apo E level with the highest cholesterolemia increase due to the HC diet.Introduction.