The Journal of Nutrition Vol. 127 No. 8 August 1997, pp. 1435-1444
Copyright ©1997 by the American Society for Nutritional Sciences

Dietary Supplementation with -Linolenic Acid Alters Fatty Acid Content and Eicosanoid Production in Healthy Humans

Manuscript received 7 October 1996. Initial reviews completed 19 November 1996. Revision accepted 9 April 1997.

Margaret M. Johnson^*, Dennis D. Swan^*, Marc E. Surette^*, Jane Stegner^*, Tanya Chilton^*, Alfred N. Fonteh^*, and Floyd H. Chilton^{*, ,}

^* Department of Internal Medicine, Section on Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, and  Department of Biochemistry, Bowman Gray School of Medicine of Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC 27157-1054

To understand the in vivo metabolism of dietary -linolenic acid (GLA), we supplemented the diets of 29 volunteers with GLA in doses of 1.5-6.0 g/d. Twenty-four subjects ate controlled eucaloric diets consisting of 25% fat; the remaining subjects maintained their typical Western diets. GLA and dihomo--linolenic acid (DGLA) increased in serum lipids of subjects supplemented with 3.0 and 6.0 g/d; serum arachidonic acid increased in all subjects. GLA supplementation with 3.0 and 6.0 g/d also resulted in an enrichment of DGLA in neutrophil phospholipids but no change in GLA or AA levels. Before supplementation, DGLA was associated primarily with phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) of neutrophil glycerolipids, and DGLA increased significantly in PE and neutral lipids after GLA supplementation. Extending the supplementation to 12 wk did not consistently change the magnitude of increase in either serum or neutrophil lipids in subjects receiving 3.0 g/d. After GLA supplementation, A23187-stimulated neutrophils released significantly more DGLA, but AA release did not change. Neutrophils obtained from subjects after 3 wk of supplementation with 3.0 g/d GLA synthesized less leukotriene B₄ (P < 0.05) and platelet-activating factor. Together, these data reveal that DGLA, the elongase product of GLA, but not AA accumulates in neutrophil glycerolipids after GLA supplementation. The increase in DGLA relative to AA within inflammatory cells such as the neutrophil may attenuate the biosynthesis of AA metabolites and may represent a mechanism by which dietary GLA exerts an anti-inflammatory effect.

Key words: inflammation, -linolenic acid, arachidonic acid, neutrophils, leukotrienes, humans.

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