Table 2. Erythrocyte fatty acid composition of controls and diabetic patients without or with diabetic retinopathy at mild, moderate, severe, and proliferative stages (% of total fatty acid methyl esters (FAMEs) + dimethylacetals (DMAs)).

					Patients with diabetic retinopathy
	Controls		Diabetic patients		mild		moderate		severe		proliferative
	n = 18		n = 14		n = 12		n = 12		n = 22		n = 24
	median	[IQR]	median	[IQR]	median	[IQR]	median	[IQR]	median	[IQR]	median	[IQR]
C14∶0	0.43	[0.32–0.68]	0.48	[0.38–0.62]	0.73	[0.48–1.40]	0.64	[0.50–1.07]	0.85	[0.46–1.78]	0.48	[0.29–0.59]
C15∶0	0.17	[0.15–0.18]	0.22	[0.16–0.28]	0.19	[0.16–0.23]	0.22	[0.19–0.25]	0.22	[0.18–0.25]	0.23	[0.18–0.35]
DMA16∶0	1.85	[1.56–1.95]	1.77	[1.47–2.01]	1.65	[1.29–2.04]	1.50	[1.42–1.97]	1.33	[1.08–1.95]	1.74	[1.61–2.01]
C16∶0	20.56	[19.89–21.84]	21.98	[20.07–23.21]	23.63	[22.16–25.12]	24.30 a	[22.70–26.43]	23.75 a	[22.31–28.35]	22.86	[20.93–23.69]
C16∶1n-9	0.12	[0.10–0.22]	0.20	[0.17–0.24]	0.17	[0.12–0.20]	0.19	[0.13–0.29]	0.17	[0.12–0.20]	0.15	[0.12–0.26]
C16∶1n-7	0.61	[0.50–0.95]	0.83	[0.57–0.94]	0.81	[0.64–1.30]	0.61	[0.54–0.74]	0.57	[0.45–0.67]	0.74	[0.40–0.98]
C17∶0	0.38	[0.35–0.41]	0.44	[0.32–0.47]	0.35	[0.30–0.46]	0.45	[0.36–0.57]	0.48	[0.38–0.56]	0.43	[0.33–0.51]
DMA18∶0	3.16	[2.36–3.53]	3.08	[2.44–3.47]	2.30	[2.06–3.12]	2.50	[1.94–3.31]	2.26 a	[1.38–3.07]	3.13	[2.60–3.36]
DMA18∶1n-9	0.66	[0.54–0.70]	0.64	[0.55–0.72]	0.56	[0.48–0.65]	0.58	[0.49–0.76]	0.53	[0.33–0.68]	0.61	[0.49–0.68]
DMA18∶1n-7	0.15	[0.12–0.17]	0.15	[0.12–0.17]	0.12	[0.09–0.13]	0.16	[0.12–0.19]	0.13	[0.08–0.17]	0.16	[0.12–0.18]
C18∶0	14.06	[13.73–14.55]	14.64	[13.78–15.64]	14.13	[12.73–15.09]	16.31 a	[14.78–16.70]	14.91 a	[14.38–16.26]	15.10	[13.26–15.93]
C18∶1trans	0.22	[0.18–0.26]	0.20	[0.11–0.24]	0.23	[0.14–0.35]	0.31	[0.19–0.46]	0.39 a	[0.15–0.65]	0.24	[0.15–0.34]
C18∶1n-9	15.16	[14.03–16.30]	16.91 a	[15.50–20.20]	17.32	[14.45–20.19]	16.00	[13.65–17.73]	15.51	[14.07–16.73]	15.93	[15.26–18.11]
C18∶1n-7	1.19	[1.13–1.36]	1.45	[1.25–1.66]	1.24	[1.02–1.61]	1.40	[1.28–1.56]	1.24	[1.12–1.34]	1.29	[1.15–1.44]
C18∶2n-6	12.87	[10.87–13.51]	10.58	[9.66–14.27]	11.30	[10.37–14.56]	10.15 a	[8.99–10.86]	10.61 a	[8.79–11.50]	11.27	[8.74–12.84]
C20∶0	0.15	[0.14–0.17]	0.18	[0.15–0.20]	0.21	[0.17–0.23]	0.26	[0.18–0.32]	0.32	[0.18–0.34]	0.22	[0.16–0.31]
C18∶3n-6	0.09	[0.06–0.14]	0.12	[0.08–0.15]	0.12	[0.09–0.13]	0.09	[0.07–0.14]	0.10	[0.07–0.13]	0.12	[0.08–0.20]
C20∶1n-9	0.21	[0.19–0.22]	0.26	[0.21–0.29]	0.23	[0.21–0.26]	0.26	[0.23–0.28]	0.24	[0.20–0.26]	0.27	[0.23–0.33]
C18∶3n-3	0.22	[0.18–0.28]	0.21	[0.19–0.30]	0.27	[0.22–0.28]	0.23	[0.16–0.30]	0.22	[0.14–0.27]	0.22	[0.16–0.25]
C20∶2n-6	0.20	[0.18–0.21]	0.23	[0.21–0.25]	0.25	[0.21–0.35]	0.20	[0.18–0.33]	0.28	[0.20–0.38]	0.23	[0.19–0.28]
C20∶3n-9	0.09	[0.07–0.11]	0.10	[0.08–0.16]	0.10	[0.07–0.13]	0.12	[0.08–0.16]	0.11	[0.08–0.14]	0.11	[0.09–0.15]
C22∶0	0.33	[0.29–0.42]	0.42	[0.25–0.44]	0.46	[0.37–0.64]	0.76 a	[0.46–0.87]	0.78 a	[0.45–1.14]	0.62 a	[0.37–0.86]
C20∶3n-9	0.10	[0.08–0.11]	0.10	[0.07–0.11]	0.08	[0.05–0.10]	0.08	[0.04–0.10]	0.05	[0.04–0.10]	0.10	[0.08–0.12]
C20∶3n-6	1.30	[1.22–1.50]	1.50	[1.12–1.79]	1.31	[1.01–1.62]	1.26	[1.07–1.31]	1.27	[0.95–1.53]	1.32	[1.13–1.59]
C22∶1n-9	0.06	[0.05–0.06]	0.09	[0.05–0.14]	0.09	[0.06–0.14]	0.08	[0.06–0.10]	0.11	[0.08–0.17]	0.12	[0.06–0.18]
C20∶4n-6	13.04	[11.02–14.24]	11.33 a	[7.00–12.79]	9.33	[8.91–11.95]	9.93 a	[8.41–11.65]	9.90 a	[5.68–11.38]	11.68	[10.28–13.40]
C20∶5n-3	0.97	[0.71–1.56]	1.03	[0.90–1.08]	0.93	[0.61–1.04]	0.70 a	[0.54–0.98]	0.94	[0.68–1.14]	0.65	[0.48–0.79]
C24∶0	0.74	[0.63–0.83]	0.78	[0.65–0.87]	0.94	[0.81–1.70]	1.75 a	[0.83–2.15]	1.66 a	[0.89–2.31]	1.28 a	[0.62–2.11]
C24∶1n-9	0.69	[0.60–0.83]	1.15	[0.99–1.47]	1.31 a	[1.14–1.93]	2.16 a	[1.00–2.64]	2.00 a	[1.41–2.55]	1.52 a	[0.90–2.13]
C22∶4n-6	2.00	[1.70–2.18]	2.01	[0.75–2.21]	1.82	[1.56–2.19]	1.69	[1.13–2.31]	1.79	[1.10–2.19]	2.03	[1.66–2.63]
C22∶5n-6	0.35	[0.29–0.46]	0.30	[0.18–0.48]	0.34	[0.26–0.35]	0.36	[0.20–0.43]	0.35	[0.24–0.37]	0.37	[0.35–0.46]
C22∶5n-3	2.23	[1.43–2.46]	1.56 a	[0.79–2.20]	1.67 a	[1.24–1.81]	1.15 a	[0.99–1.49]	1.49 a	[0.69–1.81]	1.59 a	[1.36–1.66]
C22∶6n-3	4.51	[2.93–5.60]	2.85 a	[2.04–4.48]	2.67 a	[2.32–3.23]	2.41 a	[1.90–2.97]	2.75 a	[1.35–4.23]	3.27 a	[1.87–3.80]
total n-3	8.33	[5.28–9.36]	5.99 a	[4.17–7.33]	5.43 a	[4.38–6.52]	3.81 a	[2.61–5.08]	5.68 a	[2.71–7.42]	5.75 a	[4.17–6.61]
total n-6	29.92	[28.32–31.21]	27.92	[24.79–30.49]	24.94 a	[21.36–27.31]	21.40 a	[14.38–25.06]	24.86 a	[17.42–28.10]	26.75	[24.30–30.91]
n-6/n-3 ratio	3.76	[3.23–5.04]	4.39	[3.79–5.58]	4.31	[4.07–4.88]	4.83 a	[4.78–5.68]	4.75	[3.53–5.73]	5.08 a	[4.37–7.02]
total DMAs	5.80	[4.70–6.56]	5.90	[4.70–6.31]	4.34	[4.08–5.85]	4.78	[3.98–6.15]	4.36	[2.77–6.02]	5.77	[5.16–6.19]

^aBased on Kruskall-Wallis test, significantly different when compared to controls (P<0.05).