Pathogenesis and Frequency of Essential Fatty Acid Deficiency During Total Parenteral Nutrition

Excerpt

Essential fatty acid deficiency has heretofore been considered as a rare entity, noted experimentally in the rat and perhaps occurring under unusual circumstances in early infancy but never reported in adult humans. Now the common practice of total parenteral nutrition (intravenous hyperalimentation) in patients unable to take food orally or who have the short bowel syndrome has already led to a number of clinical reports of essential fatty acid deficiency (1-3). Indeed, the current evidence indicates that all patients who receive total parenteral feedings consisting of glucose and amino acids and devoid of linoleic acid (C18:2) would develop the deficiency