Abstract
BACKGROUND: The essential fatty acids can be helpful in the prevention of several pathologies. The purpose of this study was to quantify the major nβ3 and nβ6 fatty acids in tissues of rats fed with flaxseed oil and with a dietetic oil in order to evaluate how their chronic supplementation could influence the correspondent in vivo levels and to study the effectiveness of the dietetic oil compared to flaxseed oil.
RESULTS: Fatty acids were successfully extracted from biological samples, subjected to derivatization procedure and analysed by highβperformance liquid chromatography with UV detection under gradient elution mode. The developed method showed good linearity, precision and accuracy, with recoveries ranging from 89% to 92%. Animals treated with flaxseed and dietetic oils showed enhanced levels of nβ3 fatty acids compared to control groups, with significantly higher levels of eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid in the brain and in the adipose tissue of the dietetic group compared to the flaxseed group.
CONCLUSION: The obtained data underline that the tested oils can effectively enhance the tissue levels of nβ3 fatty acids and therefore they could be successfully used in the dietetic treatment of lipidβrelated diseases. Copyright Β© 2011 Society of Chemical Industry