Talk:Arachidonic acid/Archive 1

General Article Commentary
I believe that this article thoroughly describes the functions of arachidonic acid and how it contributes to Alzheimer's disease. Every link that I clicked on worked well and brought me to a page that provided the information I needed. This is definitely a good article to learn from. However, there needs to be a more thorough explanation of how Arachidonic Acid got its name. I think that would make the article more helpful.Sara.g123 (talk) 14:29, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

I think this is an error or misleading
"..usually comes from dietary animal sources" I think it usually comes from the conversion of linoleic acid in the body - this production may be blocked by long chain O-3 from fish oil. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.243.106.82 (talk) 22:16, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Arachidonic Acid Supplementation
Added supplement study trends and methods. These are important details of a study, especially when dealing with small population studies on dietary supplements. Can help refine future research and supports thesis of use.

Edgar 181 removed commercial names of products. I left this alone but will add again if it is requested.W llewellyn (talk) 17:54, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Arachidonic Acid has recently (over the past 2 years) become a popular supplement in the body building community. It's contained in two products (X-Factor and Halodrol Liquigels). I can understand not wanting to write a section that promotes these products, but would it be worth having something noting it's use in this area?

Here's a link to a study that was done at a university on this particular use:

https://beardocs.baylor.edu/bitstream/2104/4890/1/Mike_Roberts_masters.pdf

PAT or JK 15:39, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, a section on the commercial trade in AA would be welcome. Citations from the muscle press would be appropriate.  Go for it; be bold.

David.Throop 22:21, 5 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm going to consider writing this up. There are many pages with giant lists of references, clinical studies, and now additional products (Molecular Nutrition X-Factor, Gaspari Halodrol Liquigels, Axis Labs Hemodraulix, IDS Mass Caps XP, Universal Natrual Sterol Complex, Universal Animal Test, and other products.) since more research is available.  While the muscle building properties seem clear from the studies, the long term health effects, unfortunately, do not.

trnsz (talk) 04:55, 30 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The supplementation section I read sounded like an advertisement. Further, it contained emphasis (e.g. bolding) on sales pitch-like sentences. This isn't the place for infomercials. Someone who's invested in this article should source up that section and re-edit so that it becomes more encyclopedic and follows guidelines. ask123 (talk) 23:02, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Emphasis and added conclusions have been removed. The remaining data in this section all comes from the cited clinical study. It should meet the requirements for accuracy and proper support with citation.--W llewellyn (talk) 01:44, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

The section on Muscle Repair reads like an advertisement for Mike Roberts' book. That AA is related to localized inflammation and muscles is all well and good, but could we focus on that perhaps rather than the Great Mike Roberts. I think his name is vastly overused in this section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.228.99.77 (talk) 01:23, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Eicasanoids and Arachidonate Acid
i want you to discuss the eicasanoids which are the origin of arachidonate acid
 * There's already a link to the Eicosanoids in the article. What else were you wanting?David.Throop 13:07, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I would like to see how arachidonate is synthesized from linoleate/67.232.173.26 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 11:12, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Arachidonic Acid in Dairy
There are many referencesx on the net to dairy products as a rich source of 20:4 fats but according to the USDA nutrition database, dairy products are free of arachidonic acid. What is the truth?

--RJMS 17:38, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Good question. The IUPAC Lipid Handbook  (Table 5, p 740) agrees - human milk contains AA, but cow's milk doesn't.David.Throop 03:30, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

What are the major food sources of this fatty acids. I've tried to find some, but a comprehensive overview is hard to find Health23 20:53, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
 * There's a listing of several online sources for food sources of nutrients, esp essential fatty acids, at Essential fatty acid – David.Throop 00:40, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Origin of name?
Does anyone know why this compound is named so? Does it have to do with Arachnids? Joeylawn 02:31, 12 January 2007 (UTC)


 * It's related to the genus Arachis. (The French word for peanut is arachide.) Unfree (talk) 15:28, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to mess this up: I don't know how to create a new discussion section. Reference #8 to the article about a possible link between Arachidonic Acid and Alzheimers is no longer available, but I can't tell how to get to the citation to remove it or indicate it is stale, either. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.133.53.236 (talk) 01:34, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
 * To make a new section: see the top of the page where the tabs are: "...Read | Edit | New section | View history"
 * JohndanR (talk) 02:35, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Is it misleading to call it an essential fatty acid?
This part doesn't seem to me to add up:
 * Arachidonic acid is one of the essential fatty acids required by most mammals. Some mammals lack the ability to&mdash;or have a very limited capacity to&mdash;convert linoleic acid into arachidonic acid, making it an essential part of their diet. Since little or no arachidonic acid is found in plants, such animals are obligatory carnivores; the cat is a common example.

I think most mammals live off plants. If plants contain little or no arachdonic acid, then this substance can hardly be an essential component of the diet for most mammals. According to Udo Erasmus, only two fatty acids are essential for humans (linolenic acid and linoleic acid, listed at essential nutrient); ones such as arachidonic acid can be made in the body from the others. He argues that since there are large numbers of vegetarian humans and they don't tend to get the diseases that would indicate shortage of the longer-chain fatty acids, that they must not be having difficulty making these substances within the body. Cats may be more of an exeption than an example of "most mammals". --Coppertwig 20:47, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Which fatty acids are 'essential'?

 * Here's a snippet of text that I'm working on as a clarification to the definition at Essential fatty acid:

The essential fatty acids were described by Burr and Burr in 1930 as those fatty acids which cured the deficiency disease brought on by a lack of fat in the diet. Arachidonic acid was one of the fatty acids which they tested and found to be effective. Further work has shown that any of the common ω-3 or-6 fatty acids will work. And the common usage in the field is that the term essential fatty acid comprises all the ω-3 or-6 fatty acids (or at least the polyunsaturated, straight-chain methylene-interrupted ones; there are some conjugated oddities like calendic acid that aren't.)  Authorative sources include the whole families, without qualification. The human body can make some long-chain PUFA (arachidonic acid, EPA and DHA) from lineolate or lineolinate. Some writers therefore hold that the LC-PUFA are not essential. But is not how the field has generally used the term. David.Throop 00:01, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

The first few lines of the section on synthesis
Arachidonic Acid is not generated from Linoleic acid by phospholipase. Phospholipases cleave the ester bond at the carboxy terminus of the Arachidonyl moeity. Linoleic acid is a 18:2 n-6 fatty acid, Arachidonic acid is a 20:4 n-6 which means that a total of 4 hydrogens are removed from n-11, n-12, n-14, n-15 positions and an Elongase must act to extend the molecule by 2 nucleotides.Pdeitiker (talk) 00:31, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Alzheimer's Contradiction
There is a line that says Alz is and is not associated with arachidonic acid feeding. Two pieces of research conflict about whether AA feeding iz a good idea. One is about mice. If the other is not, then I will delete a citation about mice. 75.152.126.183 (talk) 10:25, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Synthesis section question
The section's first sentence states the following: "[arachidonic acid] can also be generated from DAG by diacylglycerol lipase." Soon thereafter, the PLC activation section states: "arachidonic acid may be cleaved from phospholipids by phospholipase C (PLC), yielding diacylglycerol (DAG) which subsequently is cleaved by DAG lipase to yield arachidonic acid." These sentences do not conflict, however I feel the image http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/40/Eicosanoid_synthesis.svg/2000px-Eicosanoid_synthesis.svg.png is somewhat misleading as it may be interpreted as PLC acting on DAG to make AA, when this states that PLC acts on phospholipids to make DAG. Are the statements quoted above accurate, or am I misunderstanding this page and/or the diagram image? Thanks, Vokesk (talk) 01:34, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 08:08, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

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Typo in the diagram
In the section titled “Synthesis and cascade in humans“, the diagram at the beginning of the section contains the word “glutatmic” (on the right-hand side of the chart, about halfway down). I haven’t yet learned how to edit a graphic or if that’s even possible within the wiki format. In any case, the word should be “glutamic”, and I would be much obliged if someone could fix that for me. (And can anyone point me in the direction of a tutorial for editing diagrams? Or does it have to be fixed in the program where it was originated before being uploaded?)

Thanks! SgtSparkle (talk) 09:15, 4 September 2020 (UTC)