Effects of Dietary Supplementation of Fish Oil on Levels of EPA and DHA in Vivo

Abstract:

The main focus of this study is to evaluate the effects of dietary supplement of EPA and DHA in vivo. The design of this study including the synthetic diets for mice，which were based on the balance of total energy，comprised the ω-3，ω-6 and control groups，and oral supplementation of fish oil for human；and to analyze the absorption efficiency of EPA and DHA in mice and in human after specified dietary supplementation. Our study showed that before and after one week dietary supplementation，the increasing ratio of EPA and DHA in blood of ω-3 group were 9.1 fold and 1.99 fold respectively. Compared to ω-6 group，the increase ratio of EPA and DHA in ω-3 group were 66 and 3 fold in liver，8.1 and 4.9 fold in epididymal fat pad respectively. Compared to Ctl group，the increasing ratio of EPA and DHA in ω-3 group were 35 and 3.5 fold in liver，8.1 and 5.8 fold in epididymal fat pad respectively. Human study also showed that oral administration of fish oil led to an increase of 4.4 and 1.4 fold for EPA and DHA respectively. Relative to DHA，the change of EPA level in body was more subjected to dietary fatty acid supplementation. Thus，EPA levels in mice and human are more subject to the dietary supplement compared to DHA level，probably due to the insufficient EPA intake or high turnover ratio in vivo，supplementation of fish oil to increase EPA levelin vivo is effective and probably necessary.