Publication Date:
2012-10-13
Description:
In the early 1900s, dietary fat was viewed simply as a source of calories, interchangeable with carbohydrates, but in 1929 and 1930, a husband-and-wife team published two papers in the Journal of Biological Chemistry that turned the notion on its head. Through meticulous analyses of rats fed special diets, George and Mildred Burr discovered that fatty acids were critical to health. If fatty acids were missing in the diet, a deficiency syndrome ensued that often led to death. The Burrs identified linoleic acid as an essential fatty acid and coined the phrase “essential fatty acids.” jbc;287/42/35439/FU1F1FU1 George O. Burr in 1980. This photograph was provided courtesy of the Eskind Biomedical Library, Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The work by the Burrs “showed that fats are not there solely as calories to support growth but that they are important for proper physiology,” explains Norman Salem, Jr., of DSM Nutritional Products, a company that makes bulk vitamins, lipids, carotenoids, and other nutrition products. The two papers heralded “the beginning of a modern paradigm in nutritional biochemistry.” The field of nutritional fatty acid research has exploded since the work by the Burrs and now affects our daily lives. Food manufacturers add fatty acid supplements, such as the omega-3 fatty acids eicosapentaenoic and docosahexaenoic acids (more popularly known as EPA and DHA), to processed foods, and government agencies work to establish guidelines on which fats should be incorporated into healthy diets. In a speech he gave in 1980 at the Golden Jubilee International Congress...
Print ISSN:
0021-9258
Electronic ISSN:
1083-351X
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
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