A Fast and Reliable Method for Determining Dietary Fat Absorption and Malabsorption
Background
- Chronic undernutrition resulting in significant weight retardation and linear growth failure is a broad problem in several patient populations.
- Fecal nutrient losses, including those of fat, from maldigestion or malabsorptive diseases are known to contribute to energy imbalance and, therefore, point to the need for a convenient and accurate measure of fat absorption to improve diagnosis, management and treatment of these conditions.
- Based on a measurement of consumed and excreted fat, fat-balance methodology is standard means to assess absorption of dietary fat, but is difficult in practice and lacks accuracy for verification purposes.
- Current methodology involves the collection of human fecal matter assuming all unabsorbed fat ingested from a test meal is collected in the refrigerated sample and stays of 4-7 days in a metabolic ward.
- Radio-labeled markers require ingestion of radioactive material, non-radioactive safe marker techniques are not validated to measure fat absorption, and currently there are no known markers that are safe and readily available.
- A need exists for a cost-effective appropriate marker of dietary fat that: (1) is not absorbed; (2) has the physical properties of dietary triacylglycerol fats; (3) is measured by standard gas chromatographic techniques; (4) is approved for use in humans; and (5) does not alter dietary fat absorption.
Description of Current Technology
The current invention is a composition used as a test meal with a predetermined amount of dietary fat and a predetermined amount of a non-absorbable fat marker. The fat marker can be sucrose polyester in the form of sucrose behenate and is 0.1-10% by weight of the total of dietary fat and non-absorbable fat marker in the test meal. The test meal can further consist of an amount of protein and an amount of carbohydrate and be in the form of a liquid. The test meal can contain a colorant in a quantity sufficient to change the color of the fecal matter produced from the test meal. The method for measuring total dietary fat absorption by the digestive tract of a subject comprises the steps of administering ingestion of the test meal by the subject, collecting a sample of fecal matter in an interval following ingestion of the test meal, measuring the amount of the of non-absorbable fat marker recovered in the fecal sample and calculating the amount of dietary fat recovered from the test meal to determine the amount of dietary fat that was absorbed by the digestive tract of the subject. The methods of the invention can be used to diagnose malabsorption of dietary fat by the digestive tract of a subject or impairment of dietary fat digestion. The advantage of this current invention over existing tests is that patients may take only one test and only a single "marked" stool sample is required for analysis. One only needs, therefore, to determine the ratio of fat to marker in the stool and by comparison to the same ratio in the test meal, calculate the fraction of fat absorbed from the test meal. The sucrose polybehenate is an excellent marker for this purpose because it is currently consumed in food, is completely excreted, is handled by the G.I. tract as are normal dietary fats and is readily measurable by gas chromatography. Thus, this method provides a rapid and easy assessment of dietary fat absorption and avoids the cumbersome and laborious process currently in use. A provisional patent application has been filed.
Objective
This technology is currently undergoing validation. The CCRF is seeking a corporate partner to support ongoing studies and to enter into an option or license agreement to develop and market a diagnostic test kit utilizing this technology.
Contact
To receive further confidential information to assist in evaluating this opportunity, please contact:
Joseph D. Fondacaro, PhD
Director, Intellectual Property & Venture Development
Cincinnati Children's Research Foundation
Mail Location 7032
3333 Burnet Avenue
Cincinnati, Ohio 45229-3039
Phone 513-636-7695
Fax 513-636-8453
Email jdfonda@cchmc.org
| Related Study Information |
|---|
| You must have the free Adobe Acrobat" Reader software installed on your computer to read this file. You can download Adobe Acrobat" Reader at Adobe's web site by selecting the version appropriate for your type of computer. |
