Elsevier

Food Chemistry

Volume 100, Issue 4, 2007, Pages 1639-1648
Food Chemistry

Effect of increasing amounts of a linoleic-rich dietary fat on the fat composition of four pig breeds. Part II: Fatty acid composition in muscle and fat tissues

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2005.12.045Get rights and content

Abstract

This paper studies the change of fatty acid profile in four different tissues of the pig (backfat, abdominal fat, and the muscles trapezius and longissimus thoracis et lumborum) in response to four diets containing increasing amounts (0%, 2%, 4% and 8%) of a high linoleic acid fat blend, in a sample of 48 pigs of four different breeds (Landrace, Large White, Duroc and a crossbreed Landrace × Duroc). The effects of dietary fat and breed on this profile have been separately tested for each tissue. The diet effect (increasing % of linoleic acid intake) was positive on linoleic acid deposit in all tissues, meanwhile it was negative on palmitic and stearic levels, as well as for the oleic acid. However, this effect was clear in the four tissues for the linoleic acid, while the differences did not follow the same pattern for the saturated fatty acids in trapezius muscle and abdominal fat. Although the levels of arachidonic acid in muscle tissues were higher than those found in adipose tissues, the increasing effect of the diet was stronger, in relative terms, in adipose tissues. The breed effect was, in general, lower than the diet effect. Landrace showed the higher ability to increase linoleic acid levels, particularly in the loin (longissimus thoracis et lumborum), whereas Duroc pigs seemed to be the most resistant to change of fatty acid composition according to the diet.

Introduction

The fatty acid (FA) composition and the total amount of saturated fatty acids (SFA) have been identified as dietary risk factors, related to cardiovascular diseases (Katan, Zock, & Mensink, 1994). In the developed countries, animal fats contribute substantially to the total fat intake and are the major sources of SFA. However, the compositions of these animal fats (i.e., pork tissues’ fat) can be modified by the nature of feeding fat, which can affect their metabolic pathways in different ways. For example, when pigs have a restricted feeding (low energy), fat synthesis is reduced and the muscular lean production is enhanced (Henry, 1977). It is also known that, under isocaloric conditions, the fat added to animal feed can induce a diminution of endogenous fat synthesis, probably due to a parallel reduction of carbohydrates utilization, which is the main source of the lipogenesis (Allee et al., 1971, Enser, 1984). It seems that this affects only the endogenous synthesis, but not the total amount of fat, which is mainly due to the diet. Besides, the dietary FA profile seems to affect the metabolic pathways. In this sense, an increase of unsaturated and long chain FA can reduce the lipogenesis enzymatic activity (Mourot, Aumaitre, Mounier, Peiniau, & François, 1994). Finally, the enzyme regulation mechanisms in the pig for the desaturases and the elongases are not well known, even though their activities are crucial for FA tissue composition. Δ-9 desaturase activities can be modulated by the dietary FA composition, so a diet rich in SFA can enhance these activities, whereas one rich in oleic acid (Klingenberg, Knabe, & Smith, 1995) or in PUFA (Kouba, Enser, Whittington, Nute, & Wood, 2003) can decrease them. There are several papers dealing with the effects of dietary fats on the FA composition of pork adipose and muscle tissues, and with the interactions between these effects and other factors, such as breed and feed energy level (Averette Gatlin et al., 2002, Bee et al., 2002, Eder et al., 2001, Fontanillas et al., 1997, Wood et al., 1986). Some authors (Ahn et al., 1996, Eder et al., 2001, Scheeder et al., 2000) have observed that increasing the linoleic acid in the diet leads to a higher content of linoleic acid in the loin, but not to a significant increase in arachidonic acid. Fewer data are available on the parallel increase of linoleic and arachidonic acids in fat tissues in response to increased linoleic acid in the diet (D’Arrigo et al., 2002). Other authors have also attempted to study a nutritional model of the FA distribution within pig tissues (Lizardo, van Milgen, Mourot, Noblet, & Bonneau, 2002). Such a model described the interactions between dietetic FA intake and the different lipid metabolic pathways. Moreover, this study concluded that the available models for predicting the FA composition of pork tissues were still too simple, and more knowledge is needed with regard to some metabolic processes. These authors called for studies that might provide more information on FA composition, taking into account different factors to improve the accuracy of the predictions. We have examined, in this paper, the effect of the addition of increasing amounts of a polyunsaturated fat in the diet on the FA composition of muscle and adipose tissues of pork. We also assess the differences between various breeds related to these dietary changes. This information could be of great interest from a productive point of view, and could be used for enhancing some aspects of pork fat quality.

Section snippets

Samples and experimental design

The experimental work was based on a 4 × 4 complete factorial design of two factors, diet and breed, with four levels per factor. The sample size was 48, with three animals for each of the 16 diet–breed combinations. Castrated male pigs of four breeds were used: Large White, Duroc, Landrace and a commercial crossbreed Landrace × Duroc (F1). Animals of each breed were distributed uniformly according to their weight and original litter (avoiding littermates inside the same group) and they were fed a

General

No significant differences were observed for any of the productive parameters evaluated, with respect to the factor diet. In contrast, significant differences were observed related to the breed, but only for two parameters. So, mean values of daily feed intake were significantly lower for LW (1.72 kg feed/day) and D (1.58) than for L (1.88) and F1 (1.89), and values of average daily gain were also lower for LW (0.58 kg weight/day) and D (0.56) than for L (0.67) and F1 (0.67). However, feed

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by research grants from the Comissió Interdepartamental de Recerca i Innovació Tecnològica (CIRIT) and the Comisión Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnología (CICYT). Salgot S.A. and Marta Roca de Viñals provided technical support.

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