How to Combat the Pandemic of Cardiovascular Disease? Vegetable Alpha-Linolenic Acid or Omega-3 “Fish Oil” EPA & DHA

There are currently two main directions with regard to nutritional supplements with PUFAs. The first research school recommends enriching the diet with the essential fatty acid (EFA) obtained from vegetable sources, the C18 lipid omega-3 molecule α-linolenic acid and then via the elongase/ desaturase activity naturally in omega-3 Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and omega-3 Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). The second research school says that the diet should be immediately enriched with EPA and DHA, obtained directly from fish oil. Here we want to investigate the controversies about the possible use of these FAs as preventive / curative instruments against the development of CVDs to combat the current pandemic of heart disease through nutritional intervention. We calculated from the [product] / [precursor] ration in the Cholesteryl (ChE) fraction the enzymatic activity of elongase/desaturase activity of the heart muscle of a juvenile high-fat-induced C57bl6 mouse model, which model we previously used in CVD studies. The main conclusion is that the omega-3 route from α- linolenic acid to EPA and DHA does not exist enzymatically in the heart and that the best strategy for preventing CVDs is direct diet enrichment with EPA and DHA. Because CVDs are currently the number one cause of death in the US and the WHO predicts that especially in the coming decades developing countries will be affected by this pandemic of CVDs. Research should focus on the underlying mechanism of omega-3 PUFA protection.

Keywords: Cardiovascular diseases; Heart; Metabolic syndrome; LC-MS; Lipidomics; Essential fatty acid (EFA); α-linolenic acid; Elongase/ desaturase activity; Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA); Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA); Fish oil; C57bl6 mouse model