Content of essential polyunsaturated fatty acids in three canned fish species MICHAIL I. GLADYSHEV 1,2 , NADEZHDA N. SUSHCHIK 1 , OLESIA N. MAKHUTOVA 1 & GALINA S. KALACHOVA 1 1 Institute of Biophysics of Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Akademgorodok, Krasnoyarsk, Russia, and 2 Siberian Federal University, Krasnoyarsk, Russia Abstract Three canned fish species*Pacific saury (Cololabis saira), Pacific herring (Clupea harengus) and Baltic sprat (Sprattus sprattus)*most common and popular in Russia, were analyzed for fatty acids. Special attention was paid to long-chain essential polyunsaturated fatty acids: eicosapentaenoic acid (20:5v3) and docosahexaenoic acid (22:6v3). Sums of eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid in saury, herring and sprat were, on average, 2.42, 1.80 and 1.43 g/100 g product, respectively. Contents of these essential acids in all the canned fish species were found to be very high compared with many other fish reported in the available literature. All the canned fish appeared to be highly valuable products for human nutrition concerning the content of eicosapentaenoic and docosahexaenoic acids. Keywords: Essential polyunsaturated fatty acids, canned fish, saury, sprat, herring Introduction In past decades, dietary polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) were widely recognized to generally support human health. PUFAs of the v3 family, especially eicosapentae- noic acid (20:5v3, EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (22:6v3, DHA), became known as key dietary nutrients for preventing mental, neural and, especially, cardiovascular diseases; and thus many international and national organizations (World Health Organization, British Nutrition Foundation, The American Heart Association, etc.) have recommended daily consumption of about 1 g EPADHA in the human diet (for example, Arts et al. 2001; Foran et al. 2005; Garg et al. 2006). The long-chain PUFAs EPA and DHA are efficiently synthesized de novo only by a number of microalgae species, which are subsequently consumed by aquatic invertebrates and fish; thereby, aquatic foods are known to be the main source of PUFA-accumulated products for humans (Arts et al. 2001). Since the consumption of raw fish is rare in western societies (Candela et al. 1998), fish products are prepared by heating and other culinary treatments. However, the long-chain PUFAs are considered highly susceptible to oxidation, and an exposure to high temperatures and air during processing and storage can cause deterioration of Correspondence: Michail I. Gladyshev, Institute of Biophysics of Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Akademgorodok, Krasnoyarsk 660036, Russia. Tel: 7 391 249 4517. Fax: 7 391 243 3400. E-mail: glad@ibp.ru ISSN 0963-7486 print/ISSN 1465-3478 online # 2009 Informa UK Ltd DOI: 10.1080/09637480701664761 International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition, May 2009; 60(3): 224230 Downloaded By: [NEICON Consortium] At: 04:54 13 April 2009