ROLE OF FISH OIL IN DEVELOPMENT AND HEALING OF EXPERIMENTAL ULCERS INTHE RAT

Objective: It is well established that fish oil diet exerts mucosal pr otective effects in various parts of the gastrointestinal tract probab ly through modification of the arachidonic acid metabolism. We investi gated whether an expected gastric mucosal protective action would incl ude a beneficial effect on healing of experimental gastric ulcers. Des ign: Female Wistar rats were pretreated with either 20% fish or olive oil enriched food which was continued for 10 days following induction of cryo-ulcers (diameter, 7.5 mm) with or without additional indometha cin (1.75 mg/kg, s.c., twice daily) therapy. Residual ulcer size was m easured at autopsy with standard morphometric techniques. In all evalu ations the observer was unaware of the treatment and of the timing of animal sacrifice. Results: Twenty-four hours after induction of a cryo lesion in the gastric corpus, significantly smaller ulcers were found in fish oil pretreated rats, even in animals treated with high-dose in domethacin. Evaluation of ulcer size 10 days after induction, however, revealed that the fish oil diet marginally delayed the reduction of u lcer size, despite activating cell proliferation at the ulcer margin. Indomethacin, independently of the diet, did not delay ulcer healing, despite reducing adjacent mucosal thickness. This was the case despite substantial partial inhibition of prostaglandin synthesis, indirectly documented by the development of a large proportion of intestinal ulc ers. Conclusion: Fish oil enriched diet exhibited protective propertie s on the gastric mucosa, which were not translated into accelerated he aling.