William E.M. Lands

William E.M. Lands (born July 22, 1930) is an American nutritional biochemist who is among the world's foremost authorities on essential fatty acids. Lands graduated from University of Michigan in 1951 and served on the faculty there from 1955 to 1980. He then moved to University of Illinois (1980–1990) and subsequently the National Institutes of Health (1990–2002), where he served as the Senior Scientific Advisor to the Director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Lands is credited for discovering the beneficial effects of balancing the effects of excess omega-6 fatty acids with dietary omega-3 fatty acids. The effect of essential fatty acids on formation of hormones is documented in his book, "Fish, Omega-3 and Human Health" and in interviews for the lay public. University of Michigan's Department of Biological Chemistry endowed a "Lectureship on the Biochemical Basis for the Physiology of Essential Nutrients" in honor of William E.M. Lands.

Lands Lecturers have included:

Upon receipt of a Pfizer Biomedical Research Award in 1985, Lands developed an empirical mathematical relationship showing how metabolism of dietary omega-3 and omega-6 essential fatty acids leads to predictable proportions of their elongated highly unsaturated derivatives (HUFA) accumulated in tissue lipids. After retirement, he changed from publishing as William E.M. Lands to Bill Lands as he put increased attention to primary prevention of health disorders related to excessive actions of omega-6 mediators and describing consequences of imbalanced dietary intakes of omega-3 and omega-6 nutrients. More recently, Lands described an Omega 3-6 Balance Score that indicates the likely impact of individual food items on the balance of HUFA accumulated in tissues. Lands emphasized that efficient conversion of linoleic acid (18:2n-6) to the n-6 highly unsaturated fatty acid (n-6HUFA), arachidonic acid (20:4n-6), competitively displaces n-3 HUFA from tissue phospholipids and creates a narrow therapeutic window for dietary linoleic in the absence of n-3 nutrients. The HUFA balance seen with a finger-tip blood-spot assay monitors dietary intakes of essential fatty acids and predicts the likely intensity of n-6 eicosanoid-mediated pathophysiology. Many chronic inflammatory conditions made worse by actions of n-6 eicosanoid mediators (see ref.10) might be lessened by eating “functional foods” that have more positive omega 3-6 balance scores (see ref.7) and shift the HUFA balance toward lower values of % n-6 in HUFA. The current balance of n-3 and n-6 nutrients in the average American diet maintains a HUFA balance near 80% n-6 in HUFA rather than 60% for traditional Mediterranean diets or 35% for traditional Japanese diets (see ref.7). The benefits and risks for these different HUFA balances help interpret the lack of success of many large expensive clinical trials intended to reduce cardiovascular deaths.

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