Effects of Dietary Cholesterol and Fasting on Hamster Plasma Lipoprotein Lipids

Hamsters are commonly utilized for comparative study of cholesterol metabolism. The present study was conducted to assess the effects of fasting on the plasma lipoprotein cholesterol concentrations of hamsters. Over a period of 3 weeks, adult male Golden Syrian hamsters (n = 32) were fed chow with or without the addition of 2 g/kg cholesterol. Half of the animals consuming each diet were fasted for 18 hours prior to blood sampling. Comparison of diets showed the following increases in those animals receiving cholesterol: total plasma cholesterol (180%) and triacylglycerols (75%), high density (75%), low density (250%), and very low density (560%) lipoprotein cholesterol. Compared with fasted animals, total plasma triacylglycerols were higher in both non-fasted diet groups. Compared with fasted hamsters that had received cholesterol, total plasma cholesterol (mean +/- SE mmol/l) was greater (6.36 +/- 0.18 vs 5.43 +/- 0.21; p less than or equal to 0.05) in the non-fasted group, due primarily to higher VLDL cholesterol (2.07 +/- 0.18 vs 1.58 +/- 0.18; p less than or equal to 0.05). There were no differences in HDL cholesterol (2.07 +/- 0.05 vs 2.17 +/- 0.08) or LDL cholesterol (1.29 +/- 0.08 vs 1.37 +/- 0.05) between fasted and non-fasted hamsters fed cholesterol. Fasting is not necessary for the study of the plasma HDL cholesterol and LDL cholesterol of hamsters fed cholesterol.