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Reflecting the central role that cell membranes and fat droplets play in cell and tissue function it is not surprising that alteration in lipid metabolism play an important role in the pathogeneses of disease. Many major diseases involve lipids. Examples are atherosclerosis, Alzheimer?s disease, diabetes, lipid storage disease and cancer. The introduction of lipidomics into clinical diagnosis is bound to open up new sources of information that were not possible to tap before1. In many cases the alteration in lipidomes will be local and difficult to identify without biopsies. But in other cases it is to be expected that the changes will become distributed such that they are also reflected in blood cell or serum samples as has been the case for cholesterol for example. Only careful clinical screening of lipidomes will reveal how to proceed. Interesting will also be how specific changes, e.g. caused by deficits of one single metabolic step will show ?ripple effects? through the whole lipidome.

The introduction of lipidomics into clinical diagnosis is bound to open up new sources of information that were inaccessible before. Lipidomic screens on human patients will deliver revealing information not only on the functions of the individual lipid themselves, but also on the effects of particular lipid deficiencies on the whole organism.

1 Lipidomics: potential role in risk prediction and therapeutic monitoring for diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Meikle PJ, Wong G, Barlow CK, Kingwell BA.
Pharmacol Ther. 2014 Jul;143(1):12-23.

Plasma phospholipids identify antecedent memory impairment in older adults.
Mapstone M, Cheema AK, Fiandaca MS, Zhong X, Mhyre TR, MacArthur LH, Hall WJ, Fisher SG, Peterson DR, Haley JM, Nazar MD, Rich SA, Berlau DJ, Peltz CB, Tan MT, Kawas CH, Federoff HJ. Nat Med. 2014 Apr;20(4):415-8.