[The relation between polyunsaturated fatty acids and cardio-vascular accidents. I. Study of fatty acid components phospholipids].

Blood plasma lipids of women about seventy years old who had suffered from cardiovascular diseases (AVC) were studied and compared with the plasma lipids of women of about the same age without cardiac troubles. A great difference appears in the unesterified fatty acids of the phospholipids from cardiac women: we have observed a decreasing level of polyunsaturated fatty acids with a carbon chain of more than 18 carbons, and a decreasing ratio between the total concentration of the two precursors (linoleic acid omega and alpha-linolenic acid omega 3) and the total concentration of their long chain polyunsaturated derived fatty acids. On the contrary, we did not observe any significant variation of the unesterified fatty acid level in the plasma. The triglyceride and cholesterol levels also were not different between the two groups of patients. The hypothesis of a lack of elongation and of desaturation of linoleic and alpha-linolenic acids by competitive inhibition with oleic acid seems improbable, since the plasmatic concentration of oleic acid was not statistically different.