Metabolite Encyclopedia › Essential fatty acids
Linoleic acid is one of only two fats your body genuinely cannot make. It is the parent of the entire omega-6 family, and it is also the most abundant polyunsaturated fat in the modern diet by a wide margin.
- Also called18:2n-6, omega-6
- Made byPlants, not animals
- Essential becauseWe lack one desaturase
- Converted intoArachidonic acid
Three things worth knowing
“Essential” is a precise term, not a compliment. In nutrition it means one specific thing: your body cannot synthesize it, so it has to arrive in food. For linoleic acid the reason comes down to a single missing enzyme. Animals cannot insert a double bond that far along the chain from the acid end. Plants can. That is the whole story.
It is in your skin for reasons that have nothing to do with signaling. Linoleic acid is a structural part of the skin's water barrier. When it was first studied in the 1920s, deficiency showed up as scaly skin and uncontrolled water loss, which is how its essential status was discovered in the first place.
Its intake has changed more than almost any other nutrient. Consumption rose sharply across the twentieth century as industrially pressed seed oils became cheap and common. That change is the reason linoleic acid is argued about more intensely than most fats, and the argument is still live.
Why your body cannot make it
Where you meet it in food
- Sunflower oil
- Safflower oil
- Soybean oil
- Corn oil
- Walnuts
- Sunflower seeds
It is close to unavoidable. Anything fried, baked or dressed commercially is likely to contain one of these oils, which is why genuine deficiency is rare in wealthy countries.
Questions people actually ask
What makes a fatty acid essential?
Only one thing: your body cannot make it, so it has to come from food. Linoleic acid and alpha-linolenic acid are the two that qualify for humans.
Is omega-6 inflammatory?
It is the starting material for signals that promote inflammation and for signals that resolve it. The simple version you usually hear leaves out the second half.
How much do people actually get?
Far more than the amount needed to prevent deficiency, almost entirely from seed oils used in cooking and in processed food.
Why is it in a mushroom encyclopedia?
It appears in AHARA's metabolomic map of its Reishi and Lion's Mane elixirs, which is how it ended up here.
Linoleic acid is one of more than 2,000 metabolites AHARA mapped across its Reishi and Lion's Mane elixirs. You can browse the rest of what is in the bottle.
Open the Metabolite EncyclopediaReferences
Whelan J, Fritsche K. Linoleic acid. Adv Nutr. 2013;4(3):311-312. doi:10.3945/an.113.003772
Jandacek RJ. Linoleic acid: a nutritional quandary. Healthcare. 2017;5(2):25. doi:10.3390/healthcare5020025
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