observation that high dietary intake of these lipids was associated with a very low inci-dence of chronic inflammatory conditions in Eskimos1. Dietary eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), the two major components of fish oil, partial-ly replace arachidonic acid (AA) in a time...

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Online Access:http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.519.2501
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Summary:observation that high dietary intake of these lipids was associated with a very low inci-dence of chronic inflammatory conditions in Eskimos1. Dietary eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), the two major components of fish oil, partial-ly replace arachidonic acid (AA) in a time and dose dependent manner in plasma and cellular phospholipids. These are less readily released upon cell stimulation and reduce the availability of AA for eicosanoid generation. In addition, the n-3 PUFAs reduce the pro-duction of the 2-series eicosanoids generated by AA metabolism that are all pro-inflamma-tory. These include leukotriene B4 (LTB4), the most potent chemotactic agent which is responsible of neutrophil recruitment2, as well as thromboxane A2 (TXA2) which is deeply involved in the inflammatory process by increasing vascular permeability, promot-ing platelet aggregation and causing oedema3. In addition, n-3 PUFAs serve as precursors to a class of eicosanoids with limited inflamma-tory properties, such as leukotriene4 B5. It has also been widely demonstrated that n-3 fatty acids, such as EPA and DHA, are able to in-hibit inflammatory cytokine production5. Cytokines such as interleukin-1 β, inter-leukin-2, interleukin-6 and tumor necrosis factor (TNF-α), belong to a class of soluble proteins that influence the immune cell sys-tem resulting in enhancement of production of chronic inflammatory substances6,7. Evenmore Grimble et al. have recently demonstrated that the ability of fish oil to de-crease TNF-α production is influenced by in-herent TNF-α production and by polymor-phisms in the TNF-α and lymphotoxin alfa gene8. N-3 PUFAs may also act as free-radi-cal scavengers9,10. European Review for Medical and Pharmacological Sciences 225 Abstract. – There is considerable evidence to suggest that polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) alleviate a number of inflammatory dis-eases, mainly the fish derivatives, n-3 PUFAs. My aim is to briefly review the literature involving clinical interventions with these lipid ...