Omega-6 Fatty Acid - Dietary Linoleic Acid Requirement

Dietary Linoleic Acid Requirement

Adding more controversy to the n−6 fat issue is that the dietary requirement for linoleic acid (the key n−6 fatty acid), has been seriously questioned, because of a significant methodology error discovered by University of Toronto scientist Stephen Cunnane. Cunnane discovered that the seminal research used to determine the dietary requirement for linoleic acid was based on feeding animals linoleic acid-deficient diets, which were simultaneously deficient in n−3 fats. The n−3 deficiency was not taken into account. The n−6 oils added back systematically to correct the deficiency also contained trace amounts of n−3 fats. Therefore the researchers were inadvertently correcting the n−3 deficiency as well. Ultimately, it took more oil to correct both deficiencies. According to Cunnane, this error overestimates linoleic acid requirements by 5 to 15 times.