The dietary fatty acids of patients with coronary artery disease and controls in Curacao - Implications for primary and secondary prevention

Patients with coronary artery disease are advised to augment their dietary linoleic acid intakes at the expense of saturated fatty acids. We investigated whether the dietary linoleic acid intake of 57 patients with coronary artery disease (47 males, 10 females; ages 61 +/- 10 years) in Curacao is higher as compared with 77 controls (51 males, 26 females; ages 56 +/- 7 years). For this, we measured plasma cholesterol ester fatty acids, which reflect the dietary fatty acid composition of the preceding weeks. Patients with coronary artery disease and controls had minor differences in cholesterol ester fatty acids. Their cholesterol ester linoleic acid content suggests that the dietary polyunsaturated/saturated fatty acid ratio is far below 1. Comparison with data reported for The Netherlands, Greenland and Crete showed that the dietary fatty acid composition in Curacao is typically Western with a high intake of saturated fatty acids, a low intake of monounsaturated fatty acids and the consumption of linoleic acid as the predominant polyunsaturated fatty acid. Intake of long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids from fatty fish is low. Reduction of dietary saturated fatty acids, augmentation of fish consumption, and an increase of the alpha-linolenic/linoleic acid ratio are likely to be of benefit to both primary and secondary prevention from coronary artery disease in Curacao.