ArticleLipids2012
Correcting the effects of -20 °C storage and aliquot size on erythrocyte fatty acid content in the Women's Health Initiative.
Article in Lipids, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 40 papers.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
40 citing papers in PubMed, 71 citations in OpenAlex.
- Feasibility Study of Soybean Oil-Fortified Foods to Alter Blood Content of Linoleic Acid and Body Weight: A Randomized Double-Masked Placebo-Controlled Crossover Trial.The Journal of nutrition · 2026Trial
- The Relationship Between Dietary and Supplemental omega-3 Highly Unsaturated Fatty Acid Intake, Blood and Tissue omega-3 Highly Unsaturated Fatty Acid Concentrations, and Colorectal Polyp Recurrence: A Secondary Analysis of the seAFOod Polyp Prevention Trial.The Journal of nutrition · 2025Trial
- Linoleic Acid-Rich Oil Alters Circulating Cardiolipin Species and Fatty Acid Composition in Adults: A Randomized Controlled Trial.Molecular nutrition & food research · 2022Trial
- Effects of menopausal hormone therapy on erythrocyte n-3 and n-6 PUFA concentrations in the Women's Health Initiative randomized trial.The American journal of clinical nutrition · 2021Trial
- Identification of Phenotypic Lipidomic Signatures in Response to Long Chain n-3 Polyunsaturated Fatty Acid Supplementation in Humans.Journal of the American Heart Association · 2021Trial
- Absorption and Safety With Sustained Use of RELiZORB Evaluation (ASSURE) Study in Patients With Cystic Fibrosis Receiving Enteral Feeding.Journal of pediatric gastroenterology and nutrition · 2018Trial
- Higher RBC EPA + DHA corresponds with larger total brain and hippocampal volumes: WHIMS-MRI study.Neurology · 2014Trial
- Effects of Walnuts on Postprandial Cognitive Function in Adults With Subjective Cognitive Impairment: Protocol for a Randomized Crossover Trial.JMIR research protocols · 2025Article
- Article
- The Relationship Between Blood Lipidomics and Cardiotoxic Injury Following Acute Exposure to Anthracycline Chemotherapy in Women With Breast Cancer: A Feasibility Study.Current developments in nutrition · 2025Article
- Association of two cut-off points for theThe British journal of nutrition · 2025Observational
- Association between red blood cell fatty acids composition and risk of esophageal cancer: a hospital-based case-control study.Lipids in health and disease · 2025Article
- Recent studies confirm the utility of the omega-3 index.Current opinion in clinical nutrition and metabolic care · 2025Review
- Fatty Acid Intake and Polyunsaturated Fatty Acid Biomarkers and Risk of Total Knee or Hip Arthroplasty Among Older Women in the Women's Health Initiative.Arthritis care & research · 2024Article
- Biomarker-based validation of a food frequency questionnaire for the assessment of omega-3 fatty acid status in a healthy Iranian population.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Genome-wide association study of Red Blood Cell fatty acids in the Women's Health Initiative Memory Study.Prostaglandins, leukotrienes, and essential fatty acids · 2023Article
- Perceived social support predicts self-reported and objective health and health behaviors among pregnant women.Journal of behavioral medicine · 2022Article
- Red blood cell fatty acid patterns from 7 countries: Focus on the Omega-3 index.Prostaglandins, leukotrienes, and essential fatty acids · 2022Article
- Red blood cell fatty acids and age-related macular degeneration in postmenopausal women.European journal of nutrition · 2022Article
- From bedside to bench-practical considerations to avoid pre-analytical pitfalls and assess sample quality for high-resolution metabolomics and lipidomics analyses of body fluids.Analytical and bioanalytical chemistry · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Red blood cell (RBC) fatty acid (FA) patterns have been shown to predict risk for cardiovascular and other chronic diseases. As part of a project analyzing RBC samples from the Women's Health Initiative Memory Study (WHIMS) we observed implausibly low levels of highly unsaturated fatty acids (HUFA) suggestive of degradation. This was hypothesized to be due to short term storage (<1 month) at -20 °C during sample aliquoting. The purpose of this study was to measure the extent of degradation that occurs under these conditions, and then to use regression calibration equations with multiple imputations to correct the biases. Samples from the Women's Health Initiative that had always been stored at -80 °C were obtained and subjected to similar conditions as the WHIMS samples. General linear mixed models were used to develop bias-corrected calibration equations for each fatty acid. Sample degradation occurred at -20 °C with the average HUFA loss of 3.5 to 5.9 % per week depending on aliquot size (250 and 80 µL, respectively). Using the ratio of HUFA to saturated fatty acids (HUFA/SAT) as a marker of degradation, this bias-correction method raised the HUFA/SAT from 0.70 to 0.81, which was similar to that (0.78) seen in another large study with optimal processing. In summary, RBC samples should always be stored at -80 °C. The FA compositions of the degraded RBC samples from WHIMS were rehabilitated by application of regression calibration equations and multiple imputations, and these imputed datasets should be used in all future WHIMS studies.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.