Comprehensive Profiling of Plasma Fatty Acid Concentrations in Young Healthy Canadian Adults

Abstract

Circulating fatty acids (FA) are associated with a multitude of chronic diseases. However, a major gap in establishing such relationships is the lack of accepted fatty acid reference ranges representing healthy individuals. Data on validated FA reference ranges would provide a better understanding of study baseline measures and aid in the evaluation and interpretation of pharmaceutical or dietary interventions. Reference ranges for plasma FA levels have been reported in a few small studies and on a limited number of FA. Therefore, we determined the average and percentiles of a broad set of 61 FA (C14 - C24:1) from plasma total lipids from an ethnically diverse population of healthy young Canadian males and females (Total n = 826). Plasma concentrations of some of the major FA ranged from 0.3 to 4.1 mmol/L for palmitic acid, 0.1 to 1.0 mmol/L for stearic acid, 0.03 to 3.2 mmol/L for oleic acid, 0.2 to 5.0 mmol/L for linoleic acid (LA), 12.0 to 186.9 μmol/L for α-linolenic acid, and 7.2 to 237.5 μmol/L for docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). Males had significantly higher plasma concentrations of γ-linolenic acid (GLA) and n-3 docosapentaenoic acid and lower concentrations of palmitoleic acid, LA and DHA than females. Comparison of FA concentrations between Caucasians, East Asians and South Asians revealed that South Asians had significantly lower levels of palmitoleic acid (p < 0.01) and oleic acid (p = 0.01) while East Asians had lower levels of GLA (p = 0.02) and dihomo-γ-linolenic acid (p = 0.03). Overall, these data provide a comprehensive set of quantitative values that profiles a small cohort of Canadians which highlights the utility of establishing validated FA reference ranges that may be used to understand how deficient, suboptimal, or excess amounts of a given FA may be associated with chronic disease.

Palmitate Induces an Anti-Inflammatory Response in Immortalized Microglial BV-2 and IMG Cell Lines that Decreases TNFα Levels in mHypoE-46 Hypothalamic Neurons in Co-Culture

“…Palmitate crosses the blood-brain barrier and is detected in brain and hypothalamic tissue [59]. Concentrations of palmitate in the serum can range between 0.01 and 4 mM in human plasma [60, 61], and we assume that a percentage of this reaches the hypothalamus [62]. We chose 50 µM palmitate, which is lower than what is found in plasma and has been shown previously to alter inflammatory and neuropeptide gene expression in hypothalamic neuronal models [12, 14, 27].…”

Palmitic Acid Increases Endothelin-1 Expression in Vascular Endothelial Cells through the Induction of Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress and Protein Kinase C Signaling

“…We asked whether FFA induces ET-1 expression in vitro using cultured HAECs. PA is one of the most abundant saturated fatty acids in plasma [37,38], which is why it was utilized in the present study. HAECs were treated with PA at a dose of 0, 50, 100, or 200 μM for 24 h, and the mRNA expression of ET-1 was measured by qRT-PCR.…”

Circulating concentrations and relative percent composition of trans fatty acids in healthy Canadian young adults between 2004 and 2010: a cross-sectional study

“…Anthropometric measurements, health, lifestyle, food frequency questionnaires and levels of health biomarkers were obtained and described elsewhere. 24 Briefly, age, body mass index (BMI) and percent energy from dietary fat were determined from information, anthropometric measurements and food frequency questionnaire, respectively. Women who were pregnant or breastfeeding were not included in the study.…”

“…Sample preparation and fatty acid analysis were carried out as described previously. 24,25 Plasma samples were stored in a 96-well format and processed together for gas chromatography analysis. A total of 16 plates were processed.…”