I Can’t Believe Its Not Butter! The Postprandial Effects of Interesterified Versus Non-Interesterified Fats

Altering the structure of lipids by interesterification is largely replacing partial hydrogenation in the production of solid form vegetable-based fats. While proposed to be much healthier than the trans-fat containing alternatives, very little mechanistic work has been done to determine how these interesterified (IE) fats act in the human body. This seminar will present the findings of our study which aimed to describe the physiological handling of commonly consumed IE fats during and after digestion compared to a non-IE equivalent and control oil. This study was a double-blinded, cross-over, randomized controlled trial (clinicaltrials.gov NCT03191513) in healthy adults (n=20; 10 men, 10 women) aged 45-75 y. We were investigating the postprandial lipemia, dietary palmitic acid uptake by stable isotope, lipoprotein re-modelling, and triacylglycerol-rich lipoprotein (TRL) fraction apolipoprotein concentrations following a common IE blend of palm oil/kernel fractions [80:20 palm stearin/palm kernel fat] versus its non-IE counterpart, alongside a reference monounsaturated (MUFA) oil. Our study illustrates the impact that chemical modification of dietary fats can have on biological handling of those fats in the postprandial period.