Which fats are easiest to digest and why?

[fooballer]

i did an experiment with oil, butter, and hydrogenated/non-hydrogentated margarine. i found out that oil was the easiest to digest where as hydrogenated margarine was the hardest to digest of the 4. Why is this so?

the experiment involved smearing the substance onto a watch glass and then rinsing it with soap. My teacher said that the soap represents something in our bodies.

any idea what it is?

[nugget]

Bile? bile breaks down lipids and fats.

In my opinion margarine is gross, because its full of chemicals and is not natural. Thats clearly indicated by your experiment as it was harder to digest. Whats wrong with butter and oil hey? lol

[Oscerot]

Okay.

Well, the oil was easiest to digest because it is a monounsaturated or polyunsaturated fat. Unsaturated fats have either one (mono) or many (poly) kinks in their structure. This kink is basically a double bond between two carbon atoms. This makes them harder to pack = liquid fats.

Saturated fats are opposite. They have no double bonds, so they have no kink. They are easy to pack together.

Trans fats are fats that undergo a process of hydrogenation, which basically adds hydrogen atoms to the fat to make it a solid it room temperature. Very bad for you and slowly digested.


I haven't really had any experience as to how an enzyme affects fats, but I'm since I know digestive enzymes break down things, I would assume that since the unsaturated fats have kinks and are harder to pack, that they are more readibly and efficiently accessable by the enzymes for digestion. Whereas the other two fats are not.

I see it as basically; it's easier to eat one pretzle (unsaturates), than to eat a whole bunch of them stuck together at once (saturates and trans fats). Oh, I'm the enzyme.

Oh, and the soap is the enzyme in your experiment - I believe.

[nugget]

Bile contains enzymes

[Oscerot]

Yes. Thanks.

[fooballer]

Bile? bile breaks down lipids and fats.

In my opinion margarine is gross, because its full of chemicals and is not natural. Thats clearly indicated by your experiment as it was harder to digest. Whats wrong with butter and oil hey? lol

really? maybe i typed it wrong. I got oil as the easiest to digest and butter as the hardest to digest with hydrogenated margarine as the 2nd hardest to digest.

Yes, the soap does act as bile in our bodies in this experiment.

[sachin]

Thats differance between saturated and unsaturated oil, and healthy and fatfull oil.

[MrMistery]

PS: bile does not contain any enzymes

[victor]

Yes, bile only acts as "soap" in digestive system. I can say that the reason why oil is the easiest to be digested is because of its physical structure which is liquid. This kind of liquid structure widen the surface area of the oil to be mixed with bile salts, so it'll be easier to be carried via lacteal.
When it comes to the solid fat, it's harder to be carried there.

But, if we talking about the beta-oxidation of fat, in the cases if we pick only one molecule for each fat (monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, and saturated), I think the saturated fat molecule will be the fastest to have a total breakdown till acetyl-Coa fragment, where the monounsaturated will be in the 2nd rank and polyunsaturated in the 3rd rank.
The reason is that, the enzymes which are required for saturated fat is less than the monounsaturated or polyunsaturated do. (in unsaturated fat, you'll need 2 more additional enzyme, which are trans-isomerase and 2,4-dienoyl reductase).

[MrMistery]

it amazes me why biochemistry students have to know the names of all enzymes in dosens of pathways.. I am terrified of the thought that one day i will have to do that..

[victor]

actually there's a systematic name (or code) for enzymes
Example, we can divide enzymes into 6 classes which are:
1. Oxidoreductase
2. Transferase
3. Hydrolase
4. Lyase
5. Isomerase
6. Ligase

Each of these classes have their own subclasses classified according with each group involved with the enzymes. So, simply said.....even though we have this enzume systematic name, it's still a lil bit hard for us to remember that

[MrMistery]

yes i know the enzymatic nomenclature. but that make things much easier, it just makes them more clear...