Essential fatty acids in growth and development

Biochemistry of essential fatty acids

Recommended Nutrient Intakes (RNIs) are set for healthy individuals living in clean environments. There are no generally accepted RNIs for those with moderate malnutrition, wasting, and stunting, who live in poor environments. Two sets of recommendations are made for the dietary intake of 30 essential nutrients in children with moderate malnutrition who require accelerated growth to regain normality: first, for those moderately malnourished children who will receive specially formulated foods and diets; and second, for those who are to take mixtures of locally available foods over a longer term to treat or prevent moderate stunting and wasting. Because of the change in definition of severe malnutrition, much of the older literature is pertinent to the moderately wasted or stunted child. A factorial approach has been used in deriving the recommendations for both functional, protective nutrients (type I) and growth nutrients (type II).

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/15648265090303S302

Proposed recommended nutrient densities for moderately malnourished children.

A substantial and robust body of epidemiological evidence indicates that prenatal dietary experience may be a factor determining cardiovascular disease risk Retrospective cohort studies indicate that low birth weight and disproportion at birth are powerful predictors of later disease risk This prenatal influence on non-communicable disease in later life has been termed programming Maternal nutritional status has been proposed to be the major programming influence on the developing fetus The evidence from epidemiological studies of nutrition, fetal development and birth outcome is, however, often weak and inconclusive The validity of the nutritional programming concept is highly dependent on experimental studies in animals The feeding of low-protein diets in rat pregnancy results in perturbations in fetal growth and dimensions at birth The offspring of rats fed low-protein diets exhibit a number of metabolic and physiological disturbances, and are consistently found to have high blood pressure from early postnatal life This experimental model has been used to explore potential mechanisms of programming through which maternal diet may programme the cardiovascular function of the fetus Indications from this work are that fetal exposure to maternally-derived glucocorticoids plays a key role in the programming mechanism Secondary to this activity, the fetal hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis may stimulate renin-angiotensin system activity, resulting in increased vascular resistance and hypertension

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Fetal programming of cardiovascular function through exposure to maternal undernutrition.

Since the discovery in 1929 that certain polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) are essential for life and health, intense investigation has revealed the multiplicity of members in each of several families of PUFA, no two of which are equivalent. The quantified nutrient requirements for the essential dietary precursors of the two dominant families of PUFA have been estimated, and the general functions of these families are slowly becoming known. The PUFA are essential components of structural membrane lipids. The functions of the individual members are not yet differentiated, except as they act as precursors of synthesis of unique octadecanoid, eicosanoid, and docosanoid products of oxidation that have potent biological properties. The PUFA occur in animals and higher plants as ubiquitous and essential components of structural lipid that are in a dynamic equilibrium with the pool of dietary acyl groups. Many human diseases have been found to involve unique essential fatty acid (EFA) deficiencies or distortion...

Control of polyunsaturated acids in tissue lipids.

Essential fatty acid deficiency in malnourished children.

Pregnant rats were kept throughout gestation on a control diet (i.e., 25% protein), on a low protein diet (i.e., 5% protein) or on a fat-free diet. At 20-21 days of gestation, the rate of 9-, 6-, and 5-desaturation was measured, using microsomes from maternal and fetal livers and placenta microsomes. The effect of protein malnutrition was more evident upon Δ6-desaturase activity from maternal liver, while a less severe reduction in the activities of Δ9- and Δ5-desaturases was observed. No measurable activities of Δ5- and Δ6-desaturases were observed in fetal liver and placenta, while a low activity of Δ9-desaturase was detected in both tissues from the three groups under study. We concluded that Δ6-desaturation is greatly affected by maternal protein deprivation, and this fact could affect the normal supply of polyunsaturated fatty acids for the normal fetus growth and tissue development.

Herminia Itarte

Papers

Essential fatty acid deficiency in malnourished children.

Prenatal protein depletion and Δ9, Δ6 and Δ5 desaturases in the rat.

Prenatal protein depletion and 9, 6 and 5 desaturases in the rat