Background: To determine whether vegetable fats cause a slower or quicker rate of gastric emptying (GE) than animal fats, we evaluated the effect of animal butter and vegetable soybean oil on solid-phase GE in patients with functional dyspepsia.
Methods: Twenty-seven patients with functional dyspepsia were enrolled in this study. Radionuclide-labeled solid meals were used to evaluate GE. A study meal was composed of 206.8 kcal to 9.2 g protein, 45 g carbohydrate, and 10 g fat (formula 1, with animal butter: 26.2% saturated palmitic acid, 29.1% unsaturated oleic acid, 3.5% linoleic acid, and 0.5% linolenic acid; formula 2, with vegetable soybean oil: 11.0% saturated palmitic acid, 23.4% unsaturated oleic acid, 53.7% linoleic acid, and 7.8% linolenic acid). Each patient received formulas 1 and 2 as study meals on separate days. GE was represented by the gastric retention ratio of the study meal at 90 min (RR90): RR90 = residual radioactivity within the region of interest (ROI) covering the entire stomach at 90 min ÷ the initial radioactivity within the ROI at 0 min.
Results: The RR90 was 0.648 ± 0.156 for formula 1 and 0.600 ± 0.131 for formula 2. There was no significant difference for the RR99 between formulas 1 and 2 (paired Student's t test, p > 0.05). Of the 27 patients, 12 (44.4%) demonstrated an increased RR99 from formula 1 to formula 2, and the RR90 of remaining 15 (55.6%) patient decreased. In addition, neither the patients with increased RR90 nor those with decreased RR90 showed a difference of symptoms between the two study meals.
Conclusion: Our data suggest that there is no difference between these two types of fat on gastric emptying.