ReviewNutrients2020
Do Eicosapentaenoic Acid and Docosahexaenoic Acid Have the Potential to Compete against Each Other?
Review in Nutrients, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 29 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
29 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 59 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effects of Omega-3 Fatty Acids on High-Fat Diet-Induced Obesity: A Systematic Review of Rodent Studies.Nutrition reviews · 2026Pooled it
- The effect of curcumin and high-content eicosapentaenoic acid supplementations in type 2 diabetes mellitus patients: a double-blinded randomized clinical trial.Nutrition & diabetes · 2024Trial
- Fatty Acids and Their Roles in Cardiac Physiology and Pathology: Mechanistic and Interventional Studies.Nutrients · 2026Review
- Association of erythrocyte fatty acid profiles with the presence and rupture of intracranial aneurysms.Lipids in health and disease · 2026Article
- Fatty Acid Profile in Liver Tissue From Cattle Raised in Different Systems in the Eastern Amazon, Brazil.International journal of food science · 2026Article
- Omega-3 Source Matters: Comparative Lipid Signatures and Quantitative Distribution of EPA/DHA Across Marine Resources.Marine drugs · 2025Article
- Erythrocyte DHA/EPA Ratio Surpasses Its Individual Fatty Acid Levels in Predicting Metabolic Syndrome in Chinese Adults: A Prospective Study.Nutrients · 2025Article
- Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection unevenly impacts metabolism in the coronal periphery of the lungs.iScience · 2025Article
- Dietary Eicosapentaenoic Acid Improves Ozone-Induced Pulmonary Inflammation in C57BL/6 Mice.The Journal of nutrition · 2025Article
- The Antimicrobial Activity of Combination of Vitamin D3 and Omega-3 against Pathogenic Microorganisms.Combinatorial chemistry & high throughput screening · 2025Article
- Differential impact of eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid in an animal model of Alzheimer's disease.Journal of lipid research · 2024Article
- Review
- Prenatal PMEnvironment & health (Washington, D.C.) · 2024Article
- The Influence of a Plant-Based Diet on Skin Health: Inflammatory Skin Diseases, Skin Healing, and Plant-Based Sources of Micro- and Macro-Nutrients.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Triazine herbicide prometryn alters epoxide hydrolase activity and increases cytochrome P450 metabolites in murine livers via lipidomic profiling.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Dietary LPC-BoundNutrients · 2024Article
- Higher Plasma Omega-3 Levels are Associated With Improved Exacerbation Risk and Respiratory-Specific Quality of Life in COPD.Chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (Miami, Fla.) · 2024Article
- The In Vitro, Ex Vivo, and In Vivo Effect of Edible Oils: A Review on Cell Interactions.Pharmaceutics · 2023Review
- Omega-3 meat enrichment and L-FABP, PPARA, and LPL genes expression are modified by the level and period of tuna oil supplementation in slow-growing chickens.Journal of animal science · 2023Article
- Higher docosahexaenoic acid levels lower the protective impact of eicosapentaenoic acid on long-term major cardiovascular events.Frontiers in cardiovascular medicine · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) are n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) consumed in low abundance in the Western diet. Increased consumption of n-3 PUFAs may have beneficial effects for a wide range of physiological outcomes including chronic inflammation. However, considerable mechanistic gaps in knowledge exist about EPA versus DHA, which are often studied as a mixture. We suggest the novel hypothesis that EPA and DHA may compete against each other through overlapping mechanisms. First, EPA and DHA may compete for residency in membrane phospholipids and thereby differentially displace n-6 PUFAs, which are highly prevalent in the Western diet. This would influence biosynthesis of downstream metabolites of inflammation initiation and resolution. Second, EPA and DHA exert different effects on plasma membrane biophysical structure, creating an additional layer of competition between the fatty acids in controlling signaling. Third, DHA regulates membrane EPA levels by lowering its rate of conversion to EPA's elongation product n-3 docosapentaenoic acid. Collectively, we propose the critical need to investigate molecular competition between EPA and DHA in health and disease, which would ultimately impact dietary recommendations and precision nutrition trials.
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What OpenQuestion holds
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.