The aim of this study was to assess the effect of meal fat content on the disposal of dietary fat in premenopausal women (n=21) with a wide range of body fat distribution. Meal fatty acid oxidation and uptake into intra-abdominal (visceral) and subcutaneous (abdominal and gluteo-femoral) fat were measured. The proportion of dietary fat uptake into the three adipose tissue depots was similar for both meals (normal-fat and high-fat meal), with intra-abdominal fat accounting for a small fraction (~5%) of meal fat disposal. In women who ate the normal-fat meal, the uptake of meal fatty acid into femoral fat increased depending on leg fat mass, while this relationship was the opposite for intra-abdominal fat when the normal-fat diet was consumed and for all depots when the high-fat diet was consumed. Intra-abdominal fat mass is therefore not a major determinant of meal fat disposal, and there were marked differences in patterns of efficiency of meal fatty acid uptake between fat depots and meal content.
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