Unusual effects of some vegetable oils on the survival time of stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rats.

Preliminary experiments have shown that a diet containing 10% rapeseed oil (low-erucic acid) markedly shortens the survival time of stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive (SHRSP) rats under 1% NaCl loading as compared with diets containing perilla oil or soybean oil. High-oleate safflower oil and high-oleate sunflower oil were found to have survival time-shortening activities comparable to that of rapeseed oil; olive oil had slightly less activity. A mixture was made of soybean oil, perilla oil, and triolein partially purified from high-oleate sunflower oil to adjust the fatty acid composition to that of rapeseed oil. The survival time of this triolein/mixed oil group was between those of the rapeseed oil and soybean oil groups. When 1% NaCl was replaced with tap water, the survival time was prolonged by approximately 80%. Under these conditions, the rapeseed oil and evening primrose oil shortened the survival time by approximately 40% as compared with n-3 fatty acid-rich perilla and fish oil; lard, soybean oil, and safflower oil with relatively high n-6/n-3 ratios shortened the survival time by roughly 10%. The observed unusual survival time-shortening activities of some vegetable oils (rapeseed, high-oleate safflower, high-oleate sunflower, olive, and evening primrose oil) may not be due to their unique fatty acid compositions, but these results suggest that these vegetable oils contain factor(s) which are detrimental to SHRSP rats.