Effect of neonatal dietary cholesterol deprivation in pigs with genetically high or low plasma cholesterol on plasma lipids and early atherogenesis

Abstract

Sixty-eight neonatal female pigs from populations selected for high (HG) or low (LG) plasma total cholesterol were used in two experiments to test the hypothesis that dietary cholesterol deprivation during the first 4 or 8 weeks of postnatal life increases plasma total cholesterol and exacerbates early aortic atherogenic lesions following free access to a high fat (15 g/100g)-high cholesterol (0.5 g/100g) diet from 4 or 8 weeks to 5 or 6 mo of age. Pigs were removed from their dam at one d of age and given free access to a modified sow-milk replacer diet containing 0 or 0.5% crystalline cholesterol. In each experiment, half of the HG and LG pigs were fed a sow-milk replacer diet containing 0 cholesterol and half were fed the same diet containing 0.5% added cholesterol. All pigs (except HG and Lg pigs in experiment 2 deprived of cholesterol throughout) were fed a 15% fat-0.5% cholesterol diet from 57 d to 6 mo (experiment 1) or 5 mo (experiment 2) of age. Overall total cholesterol and high density lipoprotein cholesterol were greater in HG than in LG pigs (P<0.01) and less in pigs fed no cholesterol than in those fed cholesterol neonatally (P<0.05) in both experiments. Nevertheless, dietary cholesterol deprivation neonatally in either HG or LG pigs did not affect the incidence or severity of aortic myogenic fiber degeneration, considered to be an early stage of atherogenic lesion development in these experimental swine. It is concluded that early aortic atherogenic lesions induced in young adult female HG and LG pigs by a high dietary cholesterol challenge during the postweaning period are not exacerbated by dietary cholesterol deprivation in neonatal life.