Abstract
Effect of α-linolenate on the essential fatty acid deficient symptoms of rats was investigated to confirm if it can be replaced with linoleate. Each 100mg/rat/day of linoleate, α-linolenate or oleate was orally administered for 14 days to the essential fatty acid deficient rats fed with fat-free diet. Linoleate recovered all the deficient symptoms, whereas α-linolenate recovered the decreasements of body weight and liver mitochondrial swelling rate except dermatosis. These results indicated that α-linolenate could replace with linoleate on certain functions of biological membranes except skin. No efficiency of α-linolenate on the skin disease might be due to either the difference of the membrane systems in skin from those in internal organs or the difference of the effects on the lipid metabolism in skin between α-linolenate and linoleate.
