The importance of triglyceride hydrolysis for the release of gastric inhibitory polypeptide.

Gastric inhibitory polypeptide is released from the small intestine after the ingestion of fat, but it is not known if triglyceride itself or one of its hydrolytic products is the stimulus to gastric inhibitory polypeptide secretion. Children with cystic fibrosis and defective fat lipolysis were studied to help define the exact stimulus to gastric inhibitory polypeptide secretion. Pancreatic enzyme therapy was withheld from the children with cystic fibrosis during these tests. Ten normal children and 10 children with cystic fibrosis each ingested corn oil and serum immunoreactive gastric inhibitory polypeptide measured. The normal children had a 10-fold increase in serum gastric inhibitory polypeptide levels after the triglyceride, but no increase in immunoreactive gastric inhibitory polypeptide occurred in the children with cystic fibrosis. When three of the children with cystic fibrosis received their pancreatic enzymes and then ingested the triglyceride, gastric inhibitory polypeptide values increased 10-fold. To assess the relative importance of the products of triglyceride hydrolysis and the chain length of the component fatty acids, 6 normal adults consumed, on separate days, 40 mmol of corn oil, medium-chain triglycerides, long-chain fatty acids, or glycerol. Long-chain fatty acids caused a fourfold increase and triglyceride a 12-fold increase in gastric inhibitory polypeptide levels. There was no increase after medium-chain triglyceride or glycerol. This indicates that long-chain fatty acids-the end product of triglyceride hydrolysis-are a stimulus to gastric inhibitory polypeptide secretion; that this release is apparently proportional to the quanitity of long-chain fatty acid present; and that hydrolysis of triglyceride is required before gastric inhibitory polypeptide release can normally occur after fat ingestion.