The role of fat in the diet of rats

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

We are reporting here the results of experiments carried out in continuation of previous investigations (Aaes-Jorgensen, Engel, Funch & Dam, 1955) into the effect of supplementing with I mg linoleic acid/animal/day diets containing no fat or hydrogenated arachis oil.The linoleic acid is roughly equivalent to the amount of essential fatty acids consumed daily by animals reared on ' fat-free ' diets containing 20% crude casein or receiving raw skim milk instead of water as drinking fluid.Another diet was prepared to contain only 0.24% arachis oil as the sole fat constituent: this quantity corresponds to the level of total fat in ' fat-free' diets containing 20% crude casein.Such a diet supplies the animals with not more than 6-10 mg linoleic acid/animal/day.T h e controls were fed on diets containing 28 yo arachis oil.Histological studies were performed on various organs of all the animals.