ABSTRACT
Proinflammatory eicosanoids are thought to play a central role in the development of systemic inflammatory response syndrome, septic shock, acute lung injury (ALI), and adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Important advances in the understanding of lung injury as an inflammatory disease have resulted in a shift of emphasis from supportive to anti-inflammatory therapy. We will review in this chapter the results of three animal studies (1-3) that show that nutritional intervention with diets containing fish and borage oil rapidly modulates the phospholipid fatty acid composition of inflammatory cell membranes, reduces the synthesis of important proinflammatory eicosanoids of lung injury, attenuates endotoxin-induced increases in pulmonary microvascular protein permeability, and improves cardiopulmonary hemodynamics and respiratory gas exchange in models of ALI. We have attributed these beneficial anti-inflammatory effects of nutritional therapy, in large part, to eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA, 20:5n-3) and γ-linolenic acid (GLA, 18:3n-6). the fatty acids present at high levels in fish and borage oil, respectively, and to modulation of the synthesis of 1-, 2-, and 3-series prostaglandins (PGs) and 4-and 5-series leukotrienes (LTs) by cells of the inflammatory process.
