Human adipose tissue fatty acid composition

Hodson, L., Skeaff, C. M., and Fielding, B. A. (2008). Fatty acid composition of adipose tissue and blood in humans and its use as a biomarker of dietary intake. Prog. Lipid Res. 47,... 

Cordain L, Martin C, Florant G, Watkins BA. The fatty acid composition of muscle, brain, marrow and adipose tissue in elk evolutionary implications for human dietary requirements. In Simopoulos AP, ed. The Return of (d3 Fatty Acids into the Food Supply. 1. Land-Based Animal Food Products and Their Health Effects. World Review of Nutrition and Dietetics, Vol. 83, Karger, Basel, 1998, p. 225. 

Recent studies of the composition of human adipose tissue indicate that 99% of the lipid is in the form of triglycerides, cholesterol representing 0.3% and phospholipids 0.1 % (Hirsch etal., 1960). Hirsch (1962) has shown that the fatty acid composition of human subcutaneous adipose tissue taken from various sites is similar to that observed in samples of adipose tissue taken from the psoas, omental, and perinephric areas. Large amounts of palmitic and oleic acid are present, but less linoleic, stearic, and palmitoleic acid. Six fatty acids account for more than 90% of the total these are myristic, palmitic, oleic, stearic, linoleic, and palmitoleic acids (Hirsch, 1962). In man, the linoleic acid is probably derived from dietary fat (Hirsch, 1962). If rat epididymal adipose tissue is incubated with acetate-... 

Epidemiological data on human populations show a strong positive correlation between age-adjusted mortality from breast cancer and dietary fat intake in different countries of the world (Carroll Khor, 1975 Carroll, 1975) but, as in the experiments with animals, there does not seem to be a correlation with intake of essential fatty acids. More detailed analysis of the data showed a positive correlation with intake of animal fat, but little or no correlation with intake of vegetal fat (Carroll, 1975). Moreover, although breast cancer mortality is about 5 times as hi in Americans as in Japanese, the per capita intake of linoleic acid is reported to be about the same in both countries (Insull et al, 1969). In addition, an analysis of the fatty acid composition of adipose tissue showed a level of 16.5% linoleic acid in Japanese compared to 10.2% in Americans (Insull et al, 1969). 

D.R. Body, The lipid composition of adipose tissue. Progress in Lipid Research, 1988, 27, I, 39-60. K.N. Seidelin, Fatty acids composition of adipose tissue in humans. Implications for the dietary fat-serum cholesterol CHD issue, Progress in Lipid Research, 1995, 34,3, 199-217. 

Plakke, T., Berkel, J., Beynen, A.C., Hermus, R.l. Katan, M.B. (1983). Relationship between the fatty acid composition of the diet and that of the subcutaneous adipose tissue in individual human subjects. Human Nutrition -AppliedNutrition, 37, 365-372. 

Lipids As the capacity of the stomach of newborns is very limited, lipids and fat are necessary to provide the large amounts of energy required by the newborn s high body growth rate. Milk fat is the major source of lipid that mammalian newborns use for accumulating body adipose tissue and for the development of their nervous system. The major lipids in milk fat are triglycerides, which represent more than 98 percent of the neutral lipids. From a quantitative point of view, there is no difference in the fat content in cow s (3.8 percent) and human milk (3.7 percent), but they do differ in their qualitative composition in fact, in cow s milk the predominant fatty acids are saturated acids, while polyunsaturated acids are the main fatty acids in human milk, as shown in Table 13.3. 

---