Page 18 - Fall2010

Precious Yet Perilous

Understanding the Essential Fatty Acids

By Chris Masterjohn

eorge and Mildred Burr traversed the long roads
leading from California to Minnesota in a Model T

GFord Roadster in 1928, smuggling their two cages
of Long-Evans rats into hotel rooms under overcoats to

keep them safe from the fierce chill of the autumn nights.
The recently married couple was about to revolutionize

the world of nutrition by showing the essentiality of cer-
tain highly unsaturated dietary fats, and within two years

would coin the term “essential fatty acids.”
1
Over the ensuing decades, the consumption of vegetable oils rich in these
fats more than doubled in the United States. The American Heart Associa-
2
tion began recommending their use to lower cholesterol levels in 1961, and
3
despite the Great Doubling that occurred during the Oiling of America, it
recently recommended we nearly double our intakes yet again. Scientific
4
research over the past several decades, however, has suggested that high

intakes of these fats or imbalances between different classes of fatty acids
may actually contribute to the risk of modern, degenerative disease. Just
how essential, then, are the essential fatty acids? Are they double-edged
swords? To begin putting the pieces of this puzzle together, let us return to
the Burrs’ expedition to the cold, northern border where their rats would
provide the first evidence of the essentiality of certain dietary fats.
18 Wise Traditions FALL 2010