Hochdorf Inside

What are fatty acids

Written by Karin Bucher | May 18, 2018 11:34:00 AM

What are sat­u­rated and un­sat­u­rated fatty acids?

Fatty acids con­sist of a glyc­er­ine mol­e­cule and three fatty acid chains (hence the name triglyc­eride). The dif­fer­ent fatty acids have chains of vary­ing lengths con­sist­ing of com­bined car­bon atoms with two bonds or "arms" where hy­dro­gen atoms ac­cu­mu­late. We speak of sat­u­rated and mo­noun­sat­u­rated or polyun­sat­u­rated fatty acids, de­pend­ing on how the chain is con­structed.


Sat­u­rated fatty acids: A fatty acid is sat­u­rated if a hy­dro­gen atom ac­cu­mu­lates on each free bond or "arm".

Mo­noun­sat­u­rated fatty acids: Where not all bonds are sat­u­rated with hy­dro­gen atoms, the neigh­bour­ing, free "arms" form a dou­ble bond. A mo­noun­sat­u­rated fatty acid is formed.

Polyun­sat­u­rated fatty acids: If there are sev­eral dou­ble bonds, we can speak of polyun­sat­u­rated acids. 

Un­sat­u­rated fatty acids are very healthy. Be­cause they are un­sat­u­rated, so still have free places, they can still form new chem­i­cal com­pounds. The body can use un­sat­u­rated fatty acids to cre­ate other or­ganic sub­stances, such as bind­ing free rad­i­cals and mak­ing them harm­less for the body in the process.

Fur­ther In­for­ma­tion
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