Comparative analysis of fatty acid profiles across omnivorous, flexitarians, vegetarians, and vegans: insights from the NuEva study

Klein, Lea; Lenz, Claudia; Krüger, Karsten; Lorkowski, Stefan; Kipp, Kristin; Dawczynski, Christine

doi:10.1186/s12944-025-02517-6

Lipids in Health and Disease

Table 2 Fatty acid profiles (%FAME) in erythrocyte lipids according to diet group

From: Comparative analysis of fatty acid profiles across omnivorous, flexitarians, vegetarians, and vegans: insights from the NuEva study

	sex	WD (23 m, 39 w)		Flex (14 m, 55 w)		VG (18 m, 46 w)		VN (17 m, 40 w)
SFA
C14:0	all	0.23 / 0.11	a	0.25 / 0.09	a	0.26 / 0.10	a	0.18 / 0.10	b
C15:0	all	0.15 / 0.05	a	0.16 / 0.04	a	0.16 / 0.04	a	0.08 / 0.04	b
C16:0	all	23.28 / 2.47	a	22.86 / 2.67	a	22.58 / 2.72	a	22.20 / 3.06	a
C17:0	all	0.27 / 0.04	a	0.26 / 0.04	a	0.27 / 0.06	a	0.22 / 0.06	b
C18:0	all	11.96 / 2.26	a, b	11.18 / 3.59	a	11.91 / 2.43	a, b	12.56 / 3.81	b
C20:0	all	0.07 / 0.02	a	0.08 / 0.03	b	0.08 / 0.03	a, b	0.10 / 0.04	c
Σ SFA	all	38.46 / 2.43	a	37.61 / 2.09	b	38.00 / 2.03	a, b	37.62 / 2.19	a, b
MUFA
C16:1n-7	all	0.27 / 0.12	a	0.25 / 0.14	a	0.26 / 0.13	a	0.19 / 0.12	b
C18:1n-9	all	15.89 / 2.18	a, b	15.68 / 2.21	a	15.72 / 1.39	a	16.39 / 2.17	b
C20:1n-9	all	0.33 / 0.18	a	0.24 / 0.11	b	0.30 / 0.17	a	0.41 / 0.23	c
C24:1n-9	all	0.10 / 0.07	a	0.11 / 0.07	a	0.11 / 0.06	a	0.12 / 0.07	a
Σ MUFA	all	17.89 / 2.26	a, b	17.49 / 2.22	a	17.64 / 1.50	a	18.27 / 2.61	b
n-6 PUFA
C18:2n-6	m w all	11.81 / 1.45 11.61 / 2.40 11.74 / 1.79	a a a	12.78 / 3.63 12.00 / 1.74 12.15 / 2.03	a a a, b	12.39 / 3.22 12.98 / 2.82 12.76 / 2.94	a b b	14.45 / 2.20 13.47 / 2.74 13.84 / 2.40	b b c
C18:3n-6	all	0.04 / 0.02	a	0.05 / 0.02	b	0.05 / 0.02	b	0.04 / 0.02	a
C20:2n-6	all	0.21 / 0.04	a	0.22 / 0.05	a	0.23 / 0.07	b	0.34 / 0.13	c
C20:3n-6	all	1.34 / 0.34	a	1.38 / 0.37	a	1.53 / 0.40	b	1.51 / 0.52	b
C20:4n-6	m w all	14.17 / 1.70 13.86 / 2.38 13.98 / 2.38	a a a	13.73 / 3.40 13.61 / 1.41 13.61 / 1.79	a, b a a, b	13.92 / 3.24 13.42 / 1.39 13.50 / 1.46	a, b a a, b	12.64 / 2.07 13.52 / 2.85 12.93 / 2.66	b a b
C22:2n-6	all	0.04 / 0.04	a	0.04 / 0.06	a, b	0.04 / 0.06	a	0.03 / 0.05	b
C22:4n-6	all	2.68 / 0.71	a	2.69 / 0.73	a	2.97 / 0.73	b	2.99 / 0.92	b
C22:5n-6	all	0.37 / 0.11	a	0.38 / 0.17	a	0.44 / 0.17	b	0.34 / 0.12	a
Σ n-6 PUFA	all	30.88 / 2.24	a	30.76 / 2.59	a	31.75 / 2.77	b	32.15 / 2.89	b
n-3 PUFA
C18:3n-3	m w all	0.17 ± 0.05 0.17 ± 0.06 0.16 / 0.07	a a a	0.19 ± 0.08 0.18 ± 0.07 0.17 / 0.06	a a a, b	0.20 ± 0.06 0.18 ± 0.06 0.18 / 0.07	a a a, b	0.23 ± 0.12 0.21 ± 0.10 0.19 / 0.08	a a b
C20:3n-3	all	0.08 / 0.02	a	0.08 / 0.04	a, b	0.07 / 0.03	b	0.08 / 0.03	a
C20:4n-3	all	0.05 / 0.02	a	0.05 / 0.02	a	0.05 / 0.03	a	0.03 / 0.02	b
C20:5n-3	m w all	0.68 / 0.39 0.64 / 0.29 0.67 / 0.31	a a a	0.61 / 0.25 0.59 / 0.28 0.59 / 0.28	a a a	0.58 / 0.31 0.46 / 0.31 0.49 / 0.26	a b b	0.36 / 0.23 0.31 / 0.15 0.32 / 0.18	b c c
C22:5n-3	all	1.92 / 0.33	a	1.90 / 0.42	a	1.98 / 0.75	a	1.81 / 0.52	a
C22:6n-3	m w all	2.89 / 1.42 3.37 / 1.08 3.32 / 1.28	a a a	3.18 / 0.86 3.21 / 1.09 3.21 / 1.09	a a a	2.42 / 1.27 2.68 / 0.95 2.66 / 1.04	a a, b b	2.09 / 1.03 2.35 / 0.80 2.29 / 0.96	b c c
n-3 index	all	3.97 / 1.49	a	3.71 / 1.21	a	3.17 / 1.15	b	2.66 / 1.06	c
n-3 LC PUFA	all	5.92 / 1.61	a	5.60 / 1.48	a, b	5.43 / 1.21	b	4.47 /1.22	c
Σ n-3 PUFA	all	6.26 / 1.58	a	5.93 / 4.59	a, b	5.70 / 1.28	b	4.82 / 1.17	c
Σ PUFA	all	37.33 / 2.49	a	36.76 / 2.37	a	37.37 / 2.87	a	37.23 / 2.51	a
%n-6 HUFA¹	all	75.38 / 6.36	a	75.21 / 5.47	a	77.82 / 4.85	b	80.52 / 4.53	c
%n-3 HUFA²	all	24.66 / 6.19	a	25.65 / 6.12	a	21.95 / 4.83	b	19.79 / 4.55	c
TFA
C16:1t9	all	0.09 / 0.02	a	0.10 / 0.02	b	0.10 / 0.03	b	0.09 / 0.03	a
C18:1t9	all	0.08 / 0.03	a	0.08 / 0.03	a	0.07 /0.02	a	0.06 / 0.02	b
Σ TFA	all	0.40 / 0.12	a	0.41 / 0.12	a	0.41 / 0.12	a	0.27 / 0.10	b
CLA	all	0.09 / 0.03	a	0.10 / 0.03	a	0.10 / 0.04	a	0.03 / 0.03	b
Ratios
n-6/n-3	all	4.70 / 1.55	a	4.76 / 1.31	a	5.67 / 1.68	b	6.72 / 2.12	c
ARA/EPA	all	21.25 / 12.37	a	21.16 / 11.85	a	28.01 / 15.41	b	39.57 / 27.27	b
ARA/DHA	all	4.18 / 1.62	a	4.08 / 1.36	a	5.16 / 1.84	b	5.63 / 1.97	b
LA/ALA	all	75.87 / 31.97	a	72.04 / 21.29	a	72.33 / 21.76	a	72.27 / 34.48	a
ARA/LA	all	1.19 / 0.30	a	1.11 / 0.26	b	1.05 / 0.30	b	0.95 / 0.25	c

Results are presented as median / IQR. Diet groups that do not share indices (a, b,c) differ significantly (Kruskal-Wallis test followed by Benjamini-Hochberg correction (p < 0.05)). Abbreviations: WD = omnivores, Flex = flexitarians, VG = vegetarians, VN = vegans, m = men, w = women, SFA = saturated fatty acids, MUFA = monounsaturated fatty acids, PUFA = polyunsaturated fatty acids, n = omega, LC = long-chain, HUFA = highly unsaturated fatty acids, TFA = trans fatty acids, CLA = conjugated linoleic acids, ARA = arachidonic acid, EPA = eicosapentaenoic acid, DHA = docosahexaenoic acid, LA = linoleic acid, ALA = α-linolenic acid
¹Percentage of n-6 PUFA in fatty acids with three or more double bonds
² Percentage of n-3 PUFA in fatty acids with three or more double bonds

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