consequences of essential fatty acids必需脂肪酸的后果.pdfVIP

Nutrients 2012, 4, 1338-1357; doi:10.3390/nu4091338 OPEN ACCESS nutrients ISSN 2072-6643 /journal/nutrients Review Consequences of Essential Fatty Acids Bill Lands 6100 Westchester Park Drive, Apt. 1219, College Park, MD 20740, USA; E-Mail: wlands@; Tel.: +1-301-345-4061 Received: 20 June 2012; in revised form: 18 August 2012 / Accepted: 13 September 2012 / Published: 24 September 2012 Abstract: Essential fatty acids (EFA) are nutrients that form an amazingly large array of bioactive mediators that act on a large family of selective receptors. Nearly every cell and tissue in the human body expresses at least one of these receptors, allowing EFA-based signaling to influence nearly every aspect of human physiology. In this way, the health consequences of specific gene-environment interactions with these nutrients are more extensive than often recognized. The metabolic transformations have similar competitive dynamics for the n-3 and n-6 homologs when converting dietary EFA from the external environment of foods into the highly unsaturated fatty acid (HUFA) esters that accumulate in the internal environment of cells and tissues. In contrast, the formation and action of bioactive mediators during tissue responses to stimuli tend to selectively create more intense consequences for n-6 than n-3 homologs. Both n-3 and n-6 nutrients have