[Middle-chain fatty acids: their dietary content, physiology, specific metabolism and clinical application]

Fatty acids (FA) , keep in food and organisms divide on FA as saturated which have no double bonds (DB), monoenic (1 DB), unsaturated (2 or 3 DB) and polyenic (4, 5, or 6 DB). Saturated and monoenic FA are used predominantly as oxidation and energy substrate, unsaturated as plasma membrane constituents, polyenic as precursors in eicosanoid and aminophospholipid production. Bearing in mind specific features of metabolism and transport in vivo, FA can be regarded as short-chain (C4-C8) and middle-chain (C10-C14), their etherification with glycerol yielding short triglycerides (TG) which are not associated with apoproteins, while long-chain FA form long TG which in enterocytes are structured into chylomicrons by apoB-48. There are grounds to believe that a) outflow of middle-chain FA as short TG from enterocytes into the portal vein bed that includes the omentum veins and b) outflow of long-chain FA as chylomicron TG via d. thoracicus into major veins of systemic circulation are associated with pathogenesis of isolated omental obesity syndrome and metabolic syndrome, which wet by obesity.