EFFECT OF RAPESEED AND DIETARY OILS ON THE MEAN SURVIVAL-TIME OF STROKE-PRONE SPONTANEOUSLY HYPERTENSIVE RATS

Low-fat conventional diets supplemented with 5 or 10% vegetable oils w ere fed to stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR-SP) from weaning and the mean survival times were determined. A 1% aqueous sodi um chloride solution was used as drinking water throughout the experim ents. In four separate experiments, the rapeseed oil group showed a si gnificantly shorter mean survival time. The relative mean survival tim es were 50-59% (rapeseed oil group), 78-106% (soybean oil group) and 8 6% (microbial oil group) as compared with the group fed perilla oil (1 00%). The group which received ii-fold diluted rapeseed oil exhibited a significantly shorter survival time as compared with the group recei ving soybean oil. Although the feeding experiments mere performed unde r very simple and restricted conditions, these results suggest that th e rapeseed oil prepared for human use contains a factor (s) which is t oxic to SHR-SP rats.