Lipid Responses to Dietary Carbohydrates

Abstract

This chapter discusses the lipid responses to dietary carbohydrates. The alpha and the omega of the dietary carbohydrate and its effect on lipid metabolism are to some extent known. The intermediate stages are obscure and would involve consideration of the metabolic role of fructose, the physical and biochemical aspects of absorption, the influence of dietary carbohydrates on gut microflora and their effect on lipid metabolism, and the possibility that metabolic pathways show some adaptation to dietary carbohydrates. The lipid responses to dietary carbohydrates reflect differences in the type of carbohydrate eaten, in the sex and age of the individual eating it, in the amount consumed, and in the nature of the accompanying dietary lipid. The study of dietary carbohydrate shows that lipid interrelationships is the estimation in tissue culture of intracellular lipid disposition in human aortic cells grown in the serum from men subjected to various dietary procedures. Carbohydrate ingestion is followed by a suppression of intracellular lipid deposition, and this occurs in the absence of any changes in the concentration of glycerides, phospholipids, or cholesterol in the serum.