Consumer's Information
The digestion
of fat |
Dietary fats are made
up of fat molecules, which are in turn composed of glycerine and fatty
acids. These may be short, medium or long chains.
Fat molecules with long chain trigly-cerides are most frequently
found in edible fat. With the help of bile acids from the liver and
enzymes (lipase) from the digestive juices of the pancreas they are
broken down into glycerine and triglycerides in the intestine and
then absorbed by the mucosal cells of the intestinal villi. Here glycerine
and triglycerides are recombined to fat. By contrast, fat molecules
with medium chain triglycerides (e.g. in mct-basis-plus
fats), acquired from coconut fat, call for far less effort to digest.
In the intestine they can swiftly and easily reach the mucosal cells
of the small intestine without being broken down by bile acids and
enzymes (lipase) and pass directly into the portal veins without
having to go through the lymphatic vessels.
Hence a special nutritive fat of medium chain, so-called mct* triglycerides
(mct-basis-plus fat) has obvious advantages if it can be used
in diet in conditions of dysfunction of the absorption of fats (malabsorption)
and of the digestion of fats (maldigestion). |
| *mct=middle
chain triglyzerides |
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