Hyperlipemia and early pancreatic injury induced by ethanol intake in rats

The pathogenesis of alcoholic pancreatitis is unknown, and even though hy-perlipemia has been hypothesized to be a risk factor for alcoholic pancreatitis, no studies di-rectly investigating whether there is a relationship between the two have ever been re-ported. Therefore, to determine if a relationship exists between hyperlipemia and alcoholic pancreatitis, especially the early stage of alcoholic pancreatic injury, we administered a reg-ular liquid Lieber-DeCarli diet, with and without ethanol as 3 5 % of total calories, to rats for 2 wk. Thereafter we measured their plasma lipid concentrations, pancreatic zymogen gran-ule fragility, and plasma lipase activity and subsequently investigated the correlations be-tween these parameters. Significant increases in plasma triglyceride, total cholesterol, phos-pholipid, nonesterified fatty acid, pancreatic zymogen granule fragility, and plasma lipase activity were observed in the ethanol liquid diet group, compared with the values of the con-trol liquid diet group, and pancreatic zymogen granule fragility was correlated with plasma triglyceride (r=0.62), total cholesterol (r=0.77), phospholipid (r=0.76), nonesterified fatty acid concentrations (r=0.62), and lipase activity (r=0.63). These results show a possible relationship between hyperlipemia and the early stage of alcoholic pancreatic injury, and they may support the hypothesis that hyperlipemia contributes to the etiology of alcoholic pancreatitis.