Table 4.

Fatty acids in Maasai diet and red blood cells

	Maasai (present study)
	Diet (n = 26)		Red blood cells (n = 18)
Fatty acids (% of total FAME)	mean	SD	mean	SD
C12:0	2.30	0.65	0.02	0.01
C14:0	8.66	2.36	0.42	0.11
C16:0	32.09	2.66	28.22	1.66
C16:1	1.49	0.38	0.50	0.09
C18:0	8.61	1.56	11.78	1.53
C18:1cis9	21.55	4.18	17.06	1.39
∑C18:1trans	1.96	0.55	0.68	0.14
C18:1t11	1.20	0.35	0.29	0.08
C18:2n-6	7.15	4.01	12.93	1.72
∑CLA	0.83	0.24	0.54	0.14
c9,t11 CLA	0.67	0.20	0.41	0.12
C18:3n-6	0.01	0.00	0.07	0.02
C18:3n-3	0.79	0.25	0.16	0.04
C20:0	0.35	0.02	0.18	0.07
C20:4n-6	0.04	0.02	13.66	1.40
C20:5n-3	0.05	0.01	0.84	0.27
C22:0	0.16	0.03	0.17	0.07
C22:5n-3	0.09	0.03	2.84	0.38
C22:6n-3	0.01	0.00	2.23	0.64
AA/EPA	0.84	0.09	16.3	--
∑SFA	63.79	6.29	44.07	1.18
∑MUFA	27.05	2.97	19.85	1.37
∑PUFA	9.16	3.87	36.08	1.52
∑n-3 PUFA	0.99	0.23	6.13	0.86
∑n-6 PUFA	7.24	3.99	29.29	1.93
n-6/n-3	7.38	4.06	4.91	1.05

AA, arachidonic acid; EPA, eicosapentaenoic acid