Plasma cholesteryl ester fatty acids in 3- and 12-year-old Finnish children.

Risk factors associated with coronary heart disease were surveyed in a multicentre study carried out in 1979 among children living in different parts of Finland. The survey included analyses of plasma lipids and cholesteryl ester (CE) fatty acids as well as a dietary interview by a 48-hour recall method. The present report gives the plasma fatty acid compositions obtained from 181 3-year-old and 226 12-year-old children and their relations to dietary factors and other plasma lipids. The mean percentages (+/- SD) of CE linoleate in the 3- and 12-year-old children were 49.2 +/- 5.2 and 5.10 +/- 51.0%, respectively. Differences in CE fatty acid composition between the various regions of Finland were relatively small, but there was a trend to higher proportions of polyunsaturated fatty acids in western and urban compared with eastern and rural communities. Among different dietary constituents the daily intake of margarine + oils or butter had the greatest effect on plasma CE fatty acid composition. There was a highly significant positive correlation between the dietary P/S ratio and the percentage of CE linoleate in plasma.