Scientists of the research group Digestive physiology and nutrition of the Universidad de Granada, composed of Emilio Martínez de Victoria Muñoz, Mariano Mañas, María Dolores Yago, Alba Martínez and Namaa Audi, have done research into the resistance of pancreatic cells to toxic agents such as alcohol or bile acids after changing the lipid profile of the cell membranes. The preliminary studied suggest that a diet rich in olive oil makes cells more resistant to this type of damage.
Pancreas is the glandule that produces and secretes the enzymes that intervene in food digestion, as well as several hormones very important for the maintenance of the normal concentration of glucose in blood, such as insulin, the best known.
One of the pancreatic diseases that involved an inflammatory process of pancreas is pancreatitis. Gallstones and alcohol consumption cause 60 to 80% of the cases of acute pancreatitis, with an incidence of 100 to 400 new cases a year every 100,000 inhabitants. The process becomes chronic when it goes on in time, and involves an alteration of the glandule structure. In Spain, 85% of the cases of chronic pancreatitis have their origin in alcohol consumption.
Olive or sunflower
The researchers from Granada have carried out a study in vitro to determine the role of olive and sunflower oil of the diet in the process of cell damage in pancreatic cells.
Therefore, scientists have subjected rodents to the same diet, with the only exception of a different contribution of fatty acids: olive or sunflower oil for eight weeks. A period of time that, according to Emilio Martínez, director of the Institute for Nutrition and Food Technology of the UGR, is enough to modify the lipid composition of pancreatic cell membranes. In the case of humans, it would be necessary a minimum of three months to obtain such effect.
After that time, cells isolated in a culture or those obtained from animals have been stimulated with the most common etiological agents implied in pancreatitis: bile acids and ethanol. The scientists have studied the cell and molecular mechanisms such as amylase secretion –enzyme-, translation signs, stability of the cytoskeleton –to maintain cell shape-, produced by the induction of this damage on pancreatic acinar cells. These are the cells that secrete the pancreatic digestive juice.
The researchers have observed a modulation of these effects after changing the lipid profile of the membranes. Up to now, the results obtained from the experimentation with rodents reveal that a diet rich in olive oil increases the resistance of pancreatic cells to harmful stimulus to a greater extent than a diet with sunflower oil. Besides, in the case of animals fed with sunflower oil, the functional situation is similar to pancreatitis.
According to Emilio Martínez, “the objective of the research work is to determine the optimum lipid profile to reduce pancreatic cell damage”. This information will also be useful to recommend the consumption of different types of fats with a view to preventing pancreatic pathologies.
At present, the scientists are working on a cell line from pancreas cancer, the AR4-2J, which adapts to the two types of fats in just 48-72 hours and allows to carry out studies with the cancer of this glandule.
Reference: Prof Emilio Martínez de Victoria Muñoz. Director of the Institute for Nutrition and Food Technology of the Universidad de Granada.
Phone number: 958 248 321 / 244174. E-mail. emiliom@ugr.es
