DHA supplementation

[Guest guest]

My almost three year old son likes “Children’s

DHA” from Nordic Naturals which is cod liver oil

and strawberry essence in a soft chewable gel

capsule. So it’s still cod liver oil but in a more

tolerable form (at least for my child).

On 1/8/04 3:52 PM, " hjillcoy "

<hjillcoy@...> wrote:

my friend says her newly omnivorous child

(previously vegan for 2 1/2

years) will not take cod liver oil and my friend is

flipping out,

concerned about DHA. what kind of other

supplemental DHA exists, she

wants to know....as in vitamins....

[Guest guest]

FYI:

Bodes well for DHA supplementation?

2: J Lipid Res. 2006 May 10; [Epub ahead of print] Rates of alpha -linolenic acid incorporation into stable lipids and conversionto docosahexaenoic acid in liver of unanesthetized rats fed a highdocosahexaenoate-containing diet.Igarashi M, Ma K, Chang L, Bell JM, Rapoport SI, Demar JC Jr.We quantified rates of incorporation of a-linolenic acid (a-LNA, 18:3n-3) into"stable" lipids (e.g. triacylglycerol, phospholipid, cholesteryl ester), as wellas the rate of conversion of a-LNA to docosahexaenoic acid (DHA, 22:6n-3), inthe liver of unanesthetized male rats on a diet whose fatty acid contentcontained 2.3% DHA (of total fatty acid, wt/wt). We infused [1-14C]a-LNAintravenously in these rats to produce a steady-state plasma radioactivity,collected arterial plasma, microwaved and removed the liver at 5 min, thenmeasured specific activities of plasma and liver lipids. At 5 min, 72.7% ofliver radioactivity (excluding unesterified fatty acid radioactivity) was instable lipids, whereas the remainder was in the aqueous compartment (largelyproducts of beta-oxidation). Taking into account the steady-state specificactivity of the liver a-LNA-CoA precursor pool, in the form of the measureddilution coefficient, we used our in vivo model to calculate incorporation ratesof unesterified a-LNA into liver triacylglycerol, phospholipid and cholesterylester (2401, 749 and 9.6 nmol/s/g x 10-4, respectively [sum = 3160 nmol/s/g x10-4]), and a lower bound for the rate of synthesis of DHA from a-LNA by theliver, 15.8 nmol/s/g x 10-4 (0.5% of net incorporation rate). Turnover rates ofa-LNA in liver triacylglycerol, phospholipid and cholesteryl ester equaled 3.2,8.7 and 2.9 %/min, respectively, corresponding to half-lives of 8-24 min. Thus,in animals fed a high DHA-containing diet, rates of beta-oxidation andesterification of a-LNA into stable liver lipids are high, compared with a lowrate of a-LNA conversion to DHA. Comparison with published brain data suggeststhat the conversion rate is insufficient to supply significant DHA to brain.Higha-LNA incorporation and turnover rates likely reflect a high rate of secretionby liver of stable lipids packaged within very low density lipoproteins.PMID: 16687661