WEDNESDAY, Oct. 8 (HealthDay News) -- Oleic acid -- found in olive oil and other unsaturated fats -- may encourage satiety after being converted into oleoylethanolamide (OEA), a lipid messenger, in the small intestine, according to research published in the Oct. 8 issue of Cell Metabolism.
Gary J. Schwartz, Ph.D., of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, Bronx, N.Y., and colleagues found that ingestion of fat -- but not protein or carbohydrate -- appeared to trigger the mobilization of OEA in the proximal small intestine, based on their work with animals. Dietary oleic acid appears to serve as the metabolic precursor of OEA biosynthesis in enterocytes.
A duodenal infusion of lipid emulsion in mice lacking PPAR-α, which mediates OEA's anorexic effect, or CD36, which enables OEA mobilization, didn't reduce their feeding, but it did in wild-type mice, the investigators found. Dietary fat stimulates OEA production from enterocytes in the small intestine, which triggers a response delaying later eating that's dependent on PPAR-α; and the process of OEA mobilization requires CD36, the authors write.
"In conclusion, our studies identify OEA as a key physiological signal that specifically links dietary fat ingestion to across-meal satiety. Nutritional and pharmacological strategies aimed at magnifying this lipid-sensing mechanism, such as inhibitors of OEA degradation, might be useful in the treatment of obesity and other eating disorders," the authors write.
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