A Healthy Fat Score: Welcome To The Club, C15:0

Healthy Aging

A new look at cardiovascular health, where every point counts (including C15:0)

A research team in Barcelona, Spain recently published a blood-based “fat score” that could be used to predict cardiovascular health. While the expected omegas were included as healthy fats, this team also included the new up-and-comers, C15:0 and C17:0. Let’s see what they found.

I’m in. Which specific fatty acids were included in this “fat score”?

Good question. First, Lazaro et al. created two groups, good fats and bad fats. Fatty acids were defined as good vs. bad based on the team’s review of landmark papers that pooled data from many cohorts and identified fatty acids that were positively or negatively associated with cardiovascular health AND also had theoretical/established direct effects on cardiovascular health.

The Good Fat Group:

• C15:0 + C17:0 (pentadecanoic acid, an emerging essential fatty acid; and heptadecanoic acid. Both are odd-chain saturated fatty acids.)
• C18:2n-6 (linoleic acid, an essential fatty acid)
• C18:3n-3 (ɑ-linolenic acid, an essential fatty acid)
• C20:5n-3 (eicosapentaenoic acid, EPA, an omega-3 fatty acid)
• C22:6n-3 (docosahexaenoic acid, DHA, an omega3 fatty acid)

The Bad Fat Group:

• C16:0 (palmitic acid, an even-chain saturated fatty acid)
• C16:1n-7 (palmitoleic acid, an omega-7 monounsaturated fatty acid)
• C18:0 (stearic acid, an even-chain saturated fatty acid)

Once Lazaro et al. defined which fatty acids went into each group, they looked at red blood cell membrane fatty acid measurements from 876 adults in Spain (438 cases that had poor cardiovascular health vs. 438 controls that had good cardiovascular health).

The LFQ Score

This blood-based lipidomic fat quality (LFQ) score was determined for each person as follows:

• Every good fatty acid at levels above the median of the control group got a score of 1. That means if a person had higher levels of all five good fats, they would start with a score of 5.
• Every bad fatty acid at levels below the median of the control group also got a score of 1. That means if a person had lower levels of all three bad fats, they would get an additional 3 points.

Thus, the range of the LFQ score was 0-8.

Got it. So, what did they find?

Well, for every 1-unit increase in the LFQ score, the risk of poor cardiovascular health was decreased by 14%. When comparing people who had low scores (0-3 points) vs. high scores (5-8 points), those with the high scores had a 36% lower risk of having poor cardiovascular health.

We like those odds.