Duodenal ulcer prevalence: research into the nature of possible protective dietary lipids.

The varying geographical prevalence of duodenal ulceration has suggested a relationship to staple diet. Previous experiments on animal peptic ulcer models showed that certain foods, particularly the lipid fraction, are ulceroprotective. This paper reports experiments on animal models further to investigate the nature of the protective substances in the most active lipid, that of horse gram. The free fatty acids and triglycerides, sterols, sterol esters and phospholipids from horse gram were extracted and tested for protective activity on rat peptic ulcer models: the pyloric ligation model which is chronic, involving 14 days pre-feeding, and two acute models using ethanol or cysteamine to induce ulceration. The results showed that sterol esters, but not sterols, were protective in the pyloric ligation model. Sterols were protective in the acute models using ethanol-induced and cysteamine-induced ulceration. Phospholipids were protective in both types of model. The free fatty acids and triglycerides gave no protection using the pyloric ligation model. The presence of sterols, sterol esters and phospholipids in the lipid fraction of foods in staple diets may account for the low prevalence of duodenal ulcer in certain geographical areas, despite a uniformly high prevalence of Helicobacter pylori infection. Copyright 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.