EFA in Foods, Tissues, and Health.

Tissue EFA have three modes of action: as lipid-protein complexes acting in membranes; as lipid-protein complexes affecting gene expression; as eicosanoid or endocannabinoid autacoids acting at specific receptors.

Dietary intake is the only route of entry for n-3/n-6 EFA, which compete with each other as they are metabolized to different chain lengths and stored as highly unsaturated fatty acid (HUFA) in tissue phospholipids.

The n-3 and n-6 autacoids (self-healing agents; auto=self, akos=healing) may give different signaling intensity with different specific receptors. Such differences cause certain food choices to have unexpected consequences by altering tissue responses.