Daj. Brouwer et al., THE DIETARY FATTY-ACIDS OF PATIENTS WITH CORONARY-ARTERY DISEASE AND CONTROLS IN CURACAO - IMPLICATIONS FOR PRIMARY AND SECONDARY PREVENTION, West Indian Medical Journal, 46(2), 1997, pp. 53-56
Patients with coronary artery disease are advised to augment their die
tary linoleic acid intakes at the expense of saturated fatty acids. We
investigated whether the dietary linoleic acid intake of 57 patients
with coronary artery disease (47 males, 10 females; ages 61 +/- 10 yea
rs) in Curacao is higher as compared with 77 controls (51 males, 26 fe
males; ages 56 +/- 7 years). For this, we measured plasma cholesterol
ester fatty acids, which reflect the dietary fatty acid composition of
the preceding weeks. Patients with coronary artery disease and contro
ls had minor differences in cholesterol ester fatty acids. Their chole
sterol ester linoleic acid content suggests that the dietary polyunsat
urated/saturated fatty acid ratio is far below 1. Comparison with data
reported for The Netherlands, Greenland and Crete showed that the die
tary fatty acid composition in Curacao is typically Western with a hig
h intake of saturated fatty acids, a low intake of monounsaturated fat
ty acids and the consumption of linoleic acid as the predominant polyu
nsaturated fatty acid. Intake of long chain polyunsaturated fatty acid
s from fatty fish is low. Reduction of dietary saturated fatty acids,
augmentation of fish consumption, and an increase of the alpha-linolen
ic/linoleic acid ratio are likely to be of benefit to both primary and
secondary prevention from coronary artery disease in Curacao.