Table 3.

Erythrocyte fatty acid profile and plasma beta-carotene level of participants with normal weight (NW) or with obesity (OB).

	NW N = 60	OBN = 50	P
12:0	0.18 ± 0.10	0.24 ± 0.15	0.01
14:0	0.68 ± 0.36	0.94 ± 0.40	0.00
15:0	0.68 ± 0.28	0.82 ± 0.38	0.07
16:0	28.17 ± 7.46	32.13 ± 2.25	0.00
18:0	10.82 ± 2.94	12.24 ± 1.45	0.02
16:1n-9	2.05 ± 0.48	2.01 ± 0.39	0.69
18:1n-9	17.53 ± 3.69	16.93 ± 2.43	0.35
18:2n-6	16.12 ± 4.04	12.57 ± 2.31	0.00
18:3n6	0.18 ± 0.09	0.21 ± 0.09	0.18
20:3n-6	1.66 ± 0.49	1.55 ± 0.30	0.13
20:4n-6	13.68 ± 2.93	12.65 ± 1.72	0.05
22:4n-6	1.80 ± 0.60	1.61 ± 0.45	0.11
22:5n-6	0.26 ± 0.12	0.23 ± 0.08	0.18
18:3n3	0.17 ± 0.06	0.18 ± 0.12	0.41
20:5n-3	0.68 ± 0.31	0.76 ± 0.49	0.21
22:5n3	0.96 ± 0.31	0.84 ± 0.18	0.05
22:6n-3	4.08 ± 1.08	3.79 ± 0.88	0.29
SAFA	40.57 ± 10.45	46.46 ± 2.51	0.00
MUFA	19.59 ± 3.90	18.94 ± 2.42	0.34
PUFA	39.85 ± 7.32	34.60 ± 2.38	0.00
PA/LA	1.92 ± 0.76	2.65 ± 0.58	0.00
Omega-3 index	5.72 ± 1.48	5.39 ± 1.34	0.45
Beta-carotene	0.98 ± 0.66	0.54 ± 0.33	0.00

The erythrocyte fatty acids are expressed as mol% of total fatty acids, whereas the beta-carotene is expressed as nmoles/ml plasma. Mean ± SD; P was assessed using an unpaired, two-tailed Student’s t-test.