title: Supplemental calories improve essential fatty acid deficiency in cystic fibrosis patients.
abstract: Fatty acid composition of plasma lipids was analyzed in malnourished cystic fibrosis patients undergoing 6 months of nutritional rehabilitation. There were three males and five females (mean age 15.1 yr); five patients had pancreatic insufficiency. Nutritional rehabilitation in seven of eight patients was accomplished by nocturnal nasogastric infusion of a high-carbohydrate semisynthetic diet, in addition to daily meals. One patient received high-energy food supplements as snacks in addition to regular meals. All patients were moderately to severely malnourished on entry to the study and showed significant improvement over the 6 months in (means +/- SE) energy intake (96 +/- 8.0 to 126 +/- 11% recommended daily allowance) and body composition (80 +/- 4 to 90 +/- 4% ideal body weight). Daily intakes of linoleic acid were not significantly different before or during nutritional rehabilitation either as an absolute amount (383 +/- 45 to 557 +/- 124 mg/kg/day) or as a percentage of total calories (4.50 +/- 0.40 to 4.73 +/- 0.14%). In comparison to the controls, the relative percentage of plasma cholesterol ester fatty acids of the CF patients on entry into the study showed a marked decrease of linoleic acid (52.7 +/- 1.0 versus 42.3 +/- 2.7%) with elevated palmitoleic (2.34 +/- 0.2 versus 5.64 +/- 0.7%) and oleic (18.7 +/- 1.0 versus 25.2 +/- 1.4%) acids; a pattern consistent with essential fatty acid deficiency. However, this pattern is not truly characteristic of a pure linoleic acid deficiency as the metabolites of linoleic acid were not decreased.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
authors.affiliation: Division of Gastroenterology, University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
authors.forename: H G
authors.initials: HG
authors.lastname: Parsons
authors.forename: E V
authors.initials: EV
authors.lastname: O'Loughlin
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Forbes
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Cooper
authors.forename: D G
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Gall
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D003550:Cystic Fibrosis / Q000178:diet therapy*; D004041:Dietary Fats; D004044:Dietary Proteins; D002149:Energy Intake; D005227:Fatty Acids / Q000097:blood; D005228:Fatty Acids, Essential / Q000172:deficiency*; D005243:Feces / Q000032:analysis; D005260:Female; D005527:Food, Fortified; D006801:Humans; D019787:Linoleic Acid; D008041:Linoleic Acids; D008055:Lipids / Q000032:analysis / Q000097:blood; D008297:Male; D015032:Zinc
chemical_list: D004041:Dietary Fats; D004044:Dietary Proteins; D005227:Fatty Acids; D005228:Fatty Acids, Essential; D008041:Linoleic Acids; D008055:Lipids; D019787:Linoleic Acid; D015032:Zinc