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Long‐chain polyunsaturated fatty acids in plasma lipids of obese children
Author(s) -
Decsi Tamás,
Molnár Dénes,
Koletzko Berthold
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
lipids
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.601
H-Index - 120
eISSN - 1558-9307
pISSN - 0024-4201
DOI - 10.1007/bf02529877
Subject(s) - medicine , arachidonic acid , polyunsaturated fatty acid , interquartile range , endocrinology , linoleic acid , chemistry , lipidology , clinical chemistry , fatty acid , biochemistry , enzyme
Fatty acid composition of plasma phospholipids (PL), triglycerides (TG), and sterol esters (STE) was determined by high‐resolution capillary gas‐liquid chromatography in 22 obese children (age: 13.7±1.4 y, body weight relative to normal weight for height: 170±24%, mean ±SD) and compared with data obtained in 25 age‐matched healthy controls. There were no differences in the levels of linoleic acid (LA, C 18∶2n‐6 ) in any of the plasma fractions from the obese children and the controls. Obese children exhibited significantly higher values of arachidonic acid (AA, C 20∶4n‐6 ) than controls both in PL (12.6 [2.4] vs. 8.3 [1.4], % wt/wt, [median (interquartile range)], P <0.001) and STE (7.3 [1.8] vs. 6.0 [1.1], P <0.05). Similarly, obese children showed higher values than controls for dihomo‐γ‐linolenic acid (DHGLA, C 20∶3n‐6 ) in PL (4.0 [0.5] vs. 3.0 [0.6], P <0.001), TG (0.4 [0.1] vs. 0.2 [0.1], P <0.001), and STE (0.9 [0.1] vs. 0.7 [0.1], P <0.01), and for γ‐linolenic acid (C 18∶3n‐6 ) in STE (1.1 [0.2] vs. 0.8 [0.2], P <0.001). The AA/LA ratios were higher in obese children than in controls in PL (0.68 [0.16] vs. 0.42 [0.09], P <0.0005) and STE (0.16 [0.04] vs. 0.12 [0.02], P <0.05), whereas the AA/DHGLA ratios were lower in TG of obese children than in controls (3.40 [0.64] vs. 5.10 [1.75], P <0.005). Plasma glucose concentrations were inversely related to AA in TG ( r =0.53, P <0.05), and plasma TG concentrations were inversely related to AA in PL and STE ( r =−0.49, P <0.05 and r =−0.48, P <0.05) and to the AA/DHGLA ratios in PL ( r =−0.57, P <0.01), TG ( r =−0.56, P <0.01) and STE ( r =−0.56, P <0.01). We conclude that the significantly higher values of n‐6 long‐chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LCP) in plasma lipids of obese children than in age‐matched controls may be caused by an enhanced activity of Δ6‐desaturation, and we speculate that elevated fasting immunoreactive insulin seen in obese children (19.4±8.0 μU/mL) may stimulate synthesis of n‐6 LCP fatty acids.