Short- and long-term repeatability of fatty acid composition of human plasma phospholipids and cholesterol esters. The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study Investigators.
We examined short-term and long-term repeatability (reliability) of the fatty acid (FA) composition of plasma phospholipids and cholesterol esters (CEs). For short-term reliability, fasting blood samples of 34 subjects were collected three times, 2 wk apart, and in 24 subjects duplicate samples were collected during each visit. For long-term reliability, two fasting samples were collected in 50 subjects approximately 3 y apart. In both phospholipids and CEs, short-term and long-term reliability coefficients were > 0.65 for the major plasma FAs (16:0, 18:0, 18:2n-6, and 20:4n-6), with the exception of 18:1n-9, but were generally lower for FAs that compose < 1% of total FAs. Reliability tended to be better for CEs than for phospholipids. Method variability was small (< 5% of total variability for most FAs), indicating that biological and dietary variability contribute most to total variability. Plasma FA measurement warrants consideration as a biochemical marker of diet in epidemiologic studies.
Ma
J
J
Division of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis 55454-1015, USA.
Folsom
A R
AR
Eckfeldt
J H
JH
Lewis
L
L
Chambless
L E
LE
D002788:Cholesterol Esters / Q000097:blood*; D005227:Fatty Acids / Q000097:blood* / Q000145:classification; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010743:Phospholipids / Q000097:blood*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013997:Time Factors
D002788:Cholesterol Esters; D005227:Fatty Acids; D010743:Phospholipids