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Docosahexaenoic acid

About: Docosahexaenoic acid is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 14412 publications have been published within this topic receiving 620852 citations. The topic is also known as: all-cis-DHA & all-cis-docosa-4,7,10,13,16,19-hexaenoic acid.


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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The question arises whether the mother, under the prevailing dietary conditions, is able to meet the high fetal requirement for EFA.
Abstract: Although essential fatty acids (EFA) and their longer chain, more unsaturated derivatives play a major role during pregnancy, hardly any information is available with respect to the course of the maternal EFA status during an uncomplicated pregnancy and its relationship to the neonatal EFA status. Therefore, a longitudinal study was started in which 110 pregnant women gave repeated blood samples from the 10th week of gestation until delivery. After birth a blood sample from the umbilical vein and a maternal venous blood sample were collected as well, and 6 months after delivery a final blood sample from the mother was taken. The absolute (mg/l) and relative (% total fatty acids) amounts of the fatty acids in plasma phospholipids were determined. The total amounts of fatty acids increased significantly during pregnancy. This pattern was similar for the individual fatty acids and fatty acid families. The relative amount of linoleic acid (18:2n-6) did not change during pregnancy, whereas the relative amount of arachidonic acid (20:4n-6) decreased. Despite maternal mobilization of docosahexaenoic acid (22:6n-3, DHA), suggested by a temporary increase in the DHA status until 18 weeks gestation, the DHA status steadily declined thereafter. This pattern was associated with a progressive increase in the DHA deficiency index in maternal blood throughout pregnancy and resulted in a sub-optimal neonatal DHA status. The overall maternal EFA status also declined steadily during pregnancy. Therefore, the question arises whether the mother, under the prevailing dietary conditions, is able to meet the high fetal requirement for EFA.

395 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Analysis of the gangliosides by thin-layer chromatography showed that there was no selective enrichment of any individual type in the plasma membranes in relation to total brain, extending the specific fatty acid compositions observed in grey matter and certain sub-fractions by other workers.

395 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Quantitative oxidative desaturation of labeled palmitic, stearic, oleic, linoleic, and linolenic acids was studied by gas-liquid radiochromatography after incubation of the acids in a medium containing adenosine triphosphate, reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, MgCl2, coenzyme A, glutathione, Nicotinamide, NaF, and NaCN in oxygen at pH 7 and 35°.

395 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Evidence that DHA promotes neuronal differentiation in rat embryonic hippocampal primary cultures is provided and DHA supplementation in culture increased the population of neurons with longer neurite length per neuron and with higher number of branches.
Abstract: Docosahexanoic acid (22:6n-3; DHA) deficiency during development is associated with impairment in learning and memory, suggesting an important role of DHA in neuronal development. Here we provide evidence that DHA promotes neuronal differentiation in rat embryonic hippocampal primary cultures. DHA deficiency in vitro was spontaneously induced by culturing hippocampal cells in chemically defined medium. DHA supplementation improved DHA levels to values observed in freshly isolated hippocampus. We found that DHA supplementation in culture increased the population of neurons with longer neurite length per neuron and with higher number of branches. However, supplementation with arachidonic, oleic or docosapentaenoic acid did not have any effect, indicating specificity of the DHA action on neurite growth. Furthermore, hippocampal cultures obtained from n-3 fatty acid deficient animals contained a lower DHA level and a neuronal population with shorter neurite length per neuron in comparison to those obtained from animals with adequate n-3 fatty acids. DHA supplementation to the deficient group recovered the neurite length to the level similar to n-3 fatty acid adequate cultures. Our data demonstrates that DHA uniquely promotes neurite growth in hippocampal neurons. Inadequate neurite development due to DHA deficiency may contribute to the cognitive impairment associated with n-3 fatty acid deficiency.

395 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A recent review revealed considerable variability in blood levels of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids and the very low to low range of blood EPA+DHA for most of the world may increase global risk for chronic disease as mentioned in this paper.

394 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
2023473
2022935
2021575
2020612
2019621
2018541