Just a few days ago I made a post about PUFA driving obesity, inflammation, and liver damage in diabetes II patients. The omega-6 fatty acid DLGA (a metabolite of linoleic acid) was the main pathological factor examined in that study. Now, a new study study demonstrates that DLGA may also cause sterility. Official estimates indicate that 1 in every 4 young couples is infertile or even sterile. Considering how ubiquitous PUFA is, the findings of the study make perfect sense.
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep15417
“…Dietary DGLA causes C. elegans to become sterile due to destruction of germ cells during larval development. Through genetic, biochemical and morphological studies, we demonstrate here that CYP-33E2 acts on dietary DGLA to produce two toxic metabolites, 8,9- and 14,15-EED, that mediate the destruction of germ cells. This is the first example of a DGLA-derived epoxide with physiological activity.”
“…However, our studies demonstrate that an overabundance of DGLA in the diet leads to the synthesis of 8,9-EED and 14,15-EED, which may interfere with a physiological signal or act as toxins triggering germ defects and death. The specificity of these two isomers is critical to the germ cell phenotype, because exposure to 11,12-EED did not lead to germ cell abnormalities. Alternatively, our experiments do not rule out possibility that exposure to excess DGLA-derived epoxides lead to germ cell defects indirectly, for example, due to the disruption of signaling pathways that are regulated by a specific membrane lipid milieu37.”
