ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the enzymes responsible for triglyceride lipolysis and the effects of dietary triacylglycerol on lipolytic activity, with emphasis on the adaptation of pancreatic lipase to dietary lipid intake. It discusses effects of other dietary components, as well as neural or hormonal control of lipases and describes the mechanisms of pancreatic lipase and colipase adaptation to dietary lipids. Preduodenal lipases are acid enzymes, which may work in extreme pH conditions. With the major mechanical steps of physical-chemical behavior of fat during duodenal digestion understood, it is possible to describe more accurately the sequential levels of dietary lipid digestion. An important role for gastric lipolysis is to prepare triacylglycerols for further intraduodenal digestion. In physiological conditions, pancreatic levels of lipase are significantly higher than those required to ensure complete digestion of dietary triglycerides. Prepyloric lipases can hydrolyze a variety of lipid substrates including milk fat globule triacylglycerols.
