History and discovery of fatty acids

Modern concept of fats are due to the French chemist, Chevreul who investigated the chemistry of animal fats between 1810-23. His work Recherches chimiques sur les corps gras d’origine animale appeared in 1823.

Essential fatty acid was discovered by husband and wife team, George and Mildred Burr at the University of Minnesota. In 1930 they identified linoleic and linolenic acids as essential for growth and reproduction.

They reported that linolenic acids a fatty acid of exclusively plant origin, cured a diseases condition observed in rats.

They fed the rats fat free diets and found that they developed a whole range of symptoms, including skin lesions, decrease in body weight, and heart and kidney enlargement.

The invention of the gas chromatography by James and Martin in the 1950s was milestone for lipid chemistry. At that time it was used for the separation of normal carboxylic acids up to 12 carbon atoms in chain length.

A few years later James and Martin themselves developed the method of separating fatty acids as their methyl ester derivatives, thereby preparing the basis for modern fatty acid research.

The first gas-liquid chromatographic analysis of milk fatty acids was published by James and Martin in 1956.

In 1953 Cropper and Heywood extended the method to the separation of the methyl esters of even-numbered fatty acids up to behenic acid.

By 1960, may laboratories were using GLC for routine analysis of fatty acids.
History and discovery of fatty acids