[Changes of the essential fatty acids in plasmalipid fractions of polytraumatized patients with different parenteral nutrition (author's transl)].

In two groups of polytraumatized patients we investigated changes in the fatty acid pattern of plasma-lipids during the phase of total parenteral nutrition. For parenteral nutrition we gave L-amino acid solutions in a dose of 0.24 g N/kg body weight/day. In addition, we administered in the first group glucose and fructose and in the second group glucose, fructose and fat emulsions in a total dose of 30 kcal/kg body weight/day. In the latter group, the proportion of the fat emulsions was 30-40% of the administered calories. We compared the achieved results with the values of a group of control persons. The most essential findings of these studies were the striking decrease of the essential fatty acids with regard to the phospholipid fraction in the early post-traumatic phase. In the first group we observed a further reduction of essential fatty acids during the period of observation. This could be avoided by administering fat emulsions of the same type as we gave in the case of the second group of patients. The functions of essential fatty acids in membranes and in intermediary metabolism are discussed.