If this is not your name, click here. Other Ophthalmic Surgery Organ Transplantation Orthopaedics Other Osteoarthritis Osteoporosis Otitis Otorhino. We have long been advised to reduce the amount of saturated fat in our diets and to make sure that we eat polyunsaturates instead. At the British Society for Immunology Annual Congress in Brighton today, Dr. Richard Sperling of the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, MA described how altering the type of fat in the diet can alter the immune system's inflammatory response, with benefits for the patient.
Neutrophils are the most common type of white blood cell.
They are found in large numbers at the site of inflammation in RA and inflammatory bowel disease. They have a number of pro-inflammatory effects. The starting material they use is a polyunsaturated fatty acid called arachidonic acid, which in turn is derived from the types of polyunsaturated fatty acids found in land-based plants and animals. Marine plants and animals contain quite different fatty acids from their land-based equivalents, for example eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid. These fatty acids can take the place of arachidonic acid in the neutrophil's LTB4 manufacturing process, resulting in slightly different end products.