Mounting evidence that increased consumption of α-linolenic acid, the vegetable n-3 fatty acid, may benefit cardiovascular health

Evaluation of: de Goede J, Verschuren WM, Boer JM, Kromhout D, Geleijnse JM. alpha-linolenic acid intake and 10-year incidence of coronary heart disease and stroke in 20,000 middle-aged men and women in The Netherlands. PLoS ONE 6(3), e17967 (2011). The polyunsaturated fatty acid of the n-3 series alpha-linolenic (ALA) is an essential fatty acid for humans, meaning that it cannot be synthesized and must be obtained from food sources. In addition, the inefficient synthesis of eicosapentaenoic (EPA) and docosahexaenoic (DHA), the more polyunsaturated n-3 fatty acids found in seafood, from ALA makes both EPA and DHA 'semi-essential'. There is a growing body of scientific evidence from epidemiological studies and some clinical trials indicating that intake of marine n-3 fatty acids (EPA and DHA), either as fish oil concentrates or fatty (so-called blue) fish, has a cardioprotective effect. The association of dietary ALA, which is the vegetable n-3 fatty acid, with cardiovascular health has been less widely investigated than that of fish-derived n-3 fatty acids and is unclear. Thus, a new study relating ALA intake to cardiovascular outcomes in a sizable cohort is welcome. Such is the present report of 10-year findings in the MORGEN study, a large Dutch population-based cohort, part of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study. The contribution of this study to the growing body of knowledge relating ALA intake to health outcomes will be discussed here.