METHODS: A total of 300 day old male broiler chicks were assigned to four dietary n-3 PUFA ascending levels as the treatment groups (T1: 0.5; T2: 8.0; T3: 11.5; T4: 16.5) using combinations of tuna oil and sunflower oil. All diets were isocaloric and isonitrogenous. On day 28, all birds were challenged with IBD virus. Antibody titer, cytokine production, bursa lesion pre and post-challenge and lymphoid organ weight were recorded.

RESULTS: On d 42 the highest body weight was observed in the T2 and T3 and the lowest in T4 chickens. Feed conversion ratio of the T2 broilers was significantly better than the other groups. Although productive parameters were not responded to the dietary n-3 PUFA in a dose-dependent manner, spleen weight, IBD and Newcastle disease antibody titers and IL-2 and IFN-γ concentrations were constantly elevated by n-3 PUFA enrichment.

SUBJECTS/METHODS: We used a cross-over designed feeding trial in 53 healthy Asian men and women (20-50 years) to test this hypothesis by exchanging 20% energy of palm olein (PO; control) with randomly interesterified PO (IPO) or high oleic acid sunflower oil (HOS). After a 2-week run-in period on PO, participants were fed PO, IPO and HOS for 6 week consecutively in randomly allocated sequences. Fasting (midpoint and endpoint) and postprandial blood at the endpoint following a test meal (3.54 MJ, 14 g protein, 85 g carbohydrate and 50 g fat as PO) were collected for the measurement of C-peptide, insulin, glucose, plasma glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide and glucagon-like peptide-1, lipids and apolipoproteins; pre-specified primary and secondary outcomes were postprandial changes in C-peptide and plasma glucose.

RESULTS: Low density lipoprotein cholesterol was 0.3 mmol/l (95% confidence interval (95% CI)) 0.1, 0.5; P<0.001) lower on HOS than on PO or IPO as predicted, indicating good compliance to the dietary intervention. There were no significant differences (P=0.58) between diets among the 10 male and 31 female completers in the incremental area under the curve (0-2 h) for C-peptide in nmol.120 min/l: GM (95% CI) were PO 220 (196, 245), IPO 212 (190, 235) and HOS 224 (204, 244). Plasma glucose was 8% lower at 2 h on IPO vs PO and HOS (both P<0.05).

PURPOSE: In this study, we aimed to discover the role of oil palm phenolics (OPP) in influencing the gene expression changes caused by an atherogenic diet in mice.

METHODS: We fed mice with either a low-fat normal diet (14.6 % kcal/kcal fat) with distilled water, or a high-fat atherogenic diet (40.5 % kcal/kcal fat) containing cholesterol. The latter group was given either distilled water or OPP. We harvested major organs such as livers, spleens and hearts for microarray gene expression profiling analysis. We determined how OPP changed the gene expression profiles caused by the atherogenic diet. In addition to gene expression studies, we carried out physiological observations, blood hematology as well as clinical biochemistry, cytokine profiling and antioxidant assays on their blood sera.

RESULTS: Using Illumina microarrays, we found that the atherogenic diet caused oxidative stress, inflammation and increased turnover of metabolites and cells in the liver, spleen and heart. In contrast, OPP showed signs of attenuating these effects. The extract increased unfolded protein response in the liver, attenuated antigen presentation and processing in the spleen and up-regulated antioxidant genes in the heart. Real-time quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction validated the microarray gene expression fold changes observed. Serum cytokine profiling showed that OPP attenuated inflammation by modulating the Th1/Th2 axis toward the latter. OPP also increased serum antioxidant activity to normal levels.