A Rapid and Simple Method for Fatty Acid Profiling and Determination of ω-3 Index in Red Blood Cells

Table 2: Quantitative results of fatty acid analysis by the three methods. The percent of each fatty acid was calculated by dividing its absolute amount by the total amount of fatty acids. Percent values are expressed as means ± SE of three (n=5) measurements.

Fatty Acids	Method 1	Method 2	Method 3
16:0	31.8 ± 2.0^a	27.7 ± 2.0	25.2 ± 2.0
18:0	24.4 ± 1.7^a	21.7 ± 1.7^a	21.2 ± 1.7^a
18:1 (9)	17.1 ± 1.1^a	16.6 ± 1.1^a	19.1 ± 1.1^a
18:2 (6)	12.2 ± 0.9^a	12.0 ± 0.9^a	12.3 ± 0.9^a
18:3 (3)	0.8 ± 0.3^a	0.4 ± 0.3^a	0.3 ± 0.3^a
20:4 (6)	8.2 ± 1.8^a	15.1 ± 1.8^b	15.8 ± 1.8^b
20:5 (3)	0.7 ± 0.4^a	1.3 ± 0.4^a	1.3 ± 0.4^a
22.6 (3)	2.0 ± 0.8^a	5.1 ± 0.8^a	4.6 ± 0.8^a
ω-3 index	2.3 ± 1.6^a	7.1 ± 1.6^a	6.6 ± 1.6^a

^a,bValues for each fatty acid with the same letter do not differ significantly between the methods.