Lipid metabolism after an oral fat test meal is affected by age-associated features of metabolic syndrome, but not by age

Abstract

Objective: Postprandial lipemia influences the development of atherosclerosis. Age has been defined as a regulating factor of the extent of postprandial lipemia, but its independence of other age-associated phenotypic features, such as metabolic syndrome, has not been fully elucidated.

Methods: To investigate if age is an independent factor influencing postprandial lipemia, we compared the lipemic response to a rich fatty meal (60% fat) of 88 healthy young men (<30 years old) and 97 older participants (77 metabolic syndrome patients aged > 40; and 20 healthy people > 65) (all ApoE3/E3), at fasting state and at 2nd and 4th postprandial hours.

Results: We didn't find differences between the healthy young men and the healthy elderly. The metabolic syndrome patients displayed a higher postprandial TG area below the curve than the other two cohorts p < 0.001. ANOVA for repeated measurements confirmed that these differences were significant at every time-point (fasting, 2 h and 4 h). Concomitant higher responses for Large and Small TRL-carried TG and Chol were found in these metabolic syndrome patients. Interestingly, the most significant differences were found for Small-TRL-carried particles, which suggest that this fact may be mainly due to impaired lipid clearance.

Conclusion: Metabolic syndrome may account for the differences in postprandial lipemia that have been attributed to age. In our study, there were no significant differences in postprandial lipemia between a young population (mean age 22.6 years) and a healthy people >65 years one (67.2 years) without metabolic syndrome.