Relation between polyunsaturated fatty acids and growth

Although it was discovered in the late 1920s that polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) are essential for proper growth and development in animals, their nutritional importance in humans has not attained general interest until the 1990s, when the role for growth and development has been extensively studied in both humans and animals. It is now known that PUFA regulate various developmental and physiological processes, and that they are of essential importance for early human growth and development. Thus, linoleic acid is the precursor of arachidonic acid, from which hormone-like compounds, such as prostaglandins and leukotrienes, are formed, whereas a -linolenic acid is the precursor of docosahexaenoic acid, which is an essential compound in cell membranes and occurs in particularly high concentration in the photoreceptors. In this paper the role of PUFA for human growth will be reviewed.