Grant: Project Grant

Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) is an omega-3 fat that is important for many functions in the body including maintaining brain health. We can either eat DHA in the form of fish or make it via a series of metabolic reactions that primarily occur in our liver from a precursor omega-3 fat called alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) that is commonly found in plants. However, whether we can synthesize enough DHA from ALA is controversial with most studies estimating that we can only convert less than 1 percent of ALA to DHA. However, we think there are two issues with this conclusion The first is that this is wrong approach/question. What we need to know is how much DHA can come from ALA not, how much ALA is converted to DHA. Secondly, we now have preliminary data suggesting that when DHA is consumed, the body slows or even stops its ability to synthesize DHA. Thus, it sort of is not fair to measure DHA synthesis rates in people consuming DHA. Here we propose a new method in humans that will also us to estimate the proportion of DHA that can be supplied by ALA in subjects consuming and not consuming DHA. We will test this in both females and males and control for the potential effect of genetics. Results from this work will help clarify how much DHA can be synthesized by ALA information that will be important as populations shift away from fish towards plant-based diets.