| Abstract: | This initial experimentation with animal models indicated that dietary palm oil did not behave as a saturated fat but rather as an unsaturated fat. Because little research with palm oil has been performed with human subjects, the following experiment involving a human dietary study to compare the effects of palm oil to sunflower oil, butter and margarine was performed. Blood samples taken from the subjects were used to determine the levels of prostacyclin and thromboxane A₂. The normal levels of prostacyclin and thromboxane A₂ in the blood are less than 5 pg/ml (8,10,11). It is therefore necessary to use a sensitive assay such as radioimmunoassay to measure these compounds. In a radioimmunoassay, a radiolabeled compound competes with an identical naturally occurring compound in the sample for binding sites on an antibody. Unbound components are seperated from the bound components, and the bound componenets are measured for radioactive activity by a gamma scintillation counter. The more the sample compound binds, the less the radioactive compound is able to bind. A standard curve is prepared using standards of known concentrations. When these standards are plotted versus the radioactive activity, a curve is produced which can be used to determine the concentration of a sample. This technique is senstitive, it is able to detect levels of prostacyclin and thromboxane A₂ as low as 5 pg/ml, and has little problem with cross-reactivity (12). It was therefore used to determine prostacyclin levels and thromboxane A₂ levels in the serum of the subjects in this study. The hypothesis of the experiment was that palm oil could behave as sunflower oil with both diets having antithrombotic effects. |
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