Book excerpt: Provides researchers, medical personnel, nutrition students, and others with an up-to-date view of several aspects of fat digestion and absorption and describes potential and realized applications. Topics addressed include enzymatic aspects of fat digestion in the gastrointestinal tract; the uptake of fat digestion products in the brush border membrane, the intracellular transport, and incorporation of these substances in glycerolipids and chylomicrons, or their portal transport; methods used to evaluate fat absorption; the effects of the triglyceride structure on fat digestion and absorption; an overview of fat absorption and studies related to malabsorption due to pancreatic and bile acid deficiency states; the effects of simulated household heating on fat absorption; and the reduction of fat uptake, either by feeding unabsorbable food fats or by interference with the digestion process of usual food fats by pharmacological means. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR