|
 It's
known that women need the good fat docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) during
pregnancy, as it's crucial in the development of the fetal
brain. If women do not consume seafood, in which DHA is naturally
found, they must synthesize DHA from fatty acid precursors in vegetable
foods such as flax seeds.
Researchers set out to determine whether DHA acts differently in
men and women, and whether the sex hormones were involved, and found
that women are able to convert fatty acids to DHA more readily than
men.
In the study, researchers compared men and women who ate the same
diets. It was found that women had more DHA than men, and women
taking oral contraceptives had more DHA than women not taking oral
contraceptives. Individuals who received the oral hormone estradiol
had the largest increases in DHA, whereas DHA decreased in subjects
who took testosterone.
Researchers concluded that estrogens cause higher DHA concentrations
in women than in men, likely because of the need to protect the
fetus in pregnant women. It is thought that the higher DHA concentrations
occur because women are able to synthesize more DHA from vegetable
sources than men.
American
Journal of Clinical Nutrition November 2004 80(5);1167-1174
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