American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol 16, 16-22, Copyright © 1965 by The American Society for Clinical Nutrition, Inc.

Characterized Oils for Use in Intravenous Fat Emulsions

¹ From the Southern Regional Research Laboratory, New Orleans, Louisiana, one of the laboratories of the Southern Utilization Research and Development Division, Agricultural Research Service, U. S. Department of Agriculture

A variety of natural oils were obtained and processed in the laboratory by various procedures. These oils included a cold-pressed peanut oil extracted from peanuts of excellent quality, a prepressed peanut oil obtained commercially, a prepressed solvent extracted peanut oil, cottonseed oil, soybean oil, and various rice, sesame and olive oils. In addition to the natural oils, synthetic glycerides of widely varying compositions were prepared; these included "simulated" human fat and mixed acetoglycerides. All these products were made available for testing in emulsions for intravenous nutrition.

The surface tension and interfacial tension against water of the natural and synthetic oils were determined. It was found that the interfacial tensions of the various glycerides do not differ greatly and that none are low enough to emulsify spontaneously, but require added emulsifiers.

On the basis of available data, peanut oil gave the most unsatisfactory physiological results. The synthetic fats tested were utilized metabolically and showed no significant differences from the better natural oils in the incidence of adverse clinical effects. Cotton-seed oil, selected because of its resistance to oxidative changes, was equal or superior to all the oils tested, natural or synthetic.