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Arachidonic Acid

Main Entry: ar•a•chi•don•ic acid

Pronunciation: ar- -k - dän-ik-
Function: noun

: a liquid unsaturated fatty acid C20H32O2 that occurs in most animal fats, is a precursor of prostaglandins, and is considered essential in animal nutrition.

During recent years, omega-3 fatty acids has proven many new uses as numerous studies have shown that supplementing diets with fish oil (a natural source of this polyunsaturated fatty acid) does everything from reducing the risk of heart disease to preventing arthritis. There is also evidence that depression may be associated with a dietary deficiency in omega-3 fatty acids. This "phospholipid hypothesis" of depression has shown up due to increasing research showing that omega-3 fatty acid concentration in the blood of depressed patients is lower than that in control patients.

The body’s lack of omega-3 fatty acid intake could be possible reason for the disease of depression. Arachidonic acid is found throughout the body and is essential for the proper functioning of almost every body organ, including the brain. It serves a wide variety of purposes, from being a purely structural element in phospholipids to being involved in signal transduction and being a substrate for a host of derivatives involved in second messenger function.

Increased omega-3 fatty acid intake may shift the balance between the two fatty acid families in the brain. Since it has been demonstrated in animal studies that increased omega-3 fatty acid intake may result in decreased brain arachidonic acid, causing depression.