Adipose tissue fatty acids, which are stored as triglycerides, reflect an individual’s dietary fat intake near perfectly. NEFA are mostly derived from adipose tissue triglycerides, so in this sense, the types of dietary fat consumed is an important consideration. Monounsaturated fats and saturated fats (namely, short and medium chain) are ideal in this respect in that they flow down the ω-9 synthetic pathway, rather than ω-6 or ω-3, resulting in polyunsaturated fatty acids with three or four double bonds, instead of five or six.
A lower saturation index goes along with a greater amount of fatty acid substrates that bend into a U shape for eicosanoid synthesis, e.g., arachidonic acid. As previously put forth, cycloxoygenase-2 is one of the gene products upregulated by LPS. The upregulation of cyclooxygenase-2 is associated with breast cancer in mammals (Brodie et al., 2001).
