Effects of various tocopherol-containing diets on tocopherol secretion into bile

γ-Tocopherol is abundant in common vegetable oil, but its concentration in plasma and liver is much lower than that of α-tocopherol. Discrimination between different forms of tocopherol is thought to take placevia the hepatic α-tocopherol transfer protein (α-TTP). γ-Tocopherol, with a low binding capacity to α-TTP, is thought to be excretedvia the bile. Our previous studies showed that γ-tocopherol administered with sesame seed exhibits significantly higher concentrations in the plasma and liver of rats than γ-tocopherol alone. Thus, we attempted to confirm whether a much higher amount of γ-tocopherol rather than γ-tocopherol would be secreted in the bile, and whether sesame seed would suppress the secretion of γ-tocopherol. In one experiment, we examined the concentrations of α-or γ-tocopherol in the plasma, liver, and bile of rats fed diets containing 300 mg/kg of α-tocopherol, 300 mg/kg of γ-tocopherol, or 300 mg/kg each of α-tocopherol+γ-tocopherol, and in the other experiment, we compared the γ-tocopherol concentrations of rats fed a diet of γ-tocopherol alone to those of rats fed a γ-tocopherol+sesame seed diet (each diet contained 300 mg/kg γ-tocopherol). The bile collection was done over 6 h. The γ-tocopherol concentration in the bile was markedly lower than that of α-tocopherol, paralleling the concentrations in the plasma and liver. Intake of α-tocopherol and γ-tocopherol together further lowered the concentration of γ-tocopherol in the bile as well as in the plasma and liver, compared to the intake of γ-tocopherol alone. The γ-tocopherol concentration in the bile, as well as in the plasma and liver, was markedly higher in the sesame seed-fed group than in the γ-tocopherol alone group. We found that the concentrations of α- or γ-tocopherol in the bile showed a good correlation with the concentrations of α- or γ-tocopherol in the liver, though the concentrations in the bile were substantially lower than those in the liver. These findings suggest that secretion into the bile is not a major metabolic route of α- or γ-tocopherol.