Research

Energy balance

During acute respiratory viral infections (RVIs), specific lipid subclasses (small TAGs, LPCs, ether-linked PEs) undergo dynamic, phase-dependent changes that correlate with immune response and energy metabolism shifts.

Your lipid profile is not static during illness. Small TAGs drop sharply early in infection (possibly for energy), while LPCs and ether-linked PEs drop later, correlating with inflammation. This suggests lipids play an active role in managing the immune response and energy demands of acute illness, rather than just being passive storage molecules.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
The blue cluster was significantly enriched for small TAG and showed sharply decreased lipid levels in early RVI, with a rapid recovery that correlated with clinical measures of total lipids... The orange cluster, enriched for LPC, large TAG and ether-linked PE, showed a similar profile to the blue cluster but a delayed recovery to baseline levels.
Daniel Hornburg et al. · Nature Metabolism · 2023

Why this rating

High-density longitudinal sampling during acute illness (390 samples from 36 participants).

Source

Dynamic lipidome alterations associated with human health, disease and ageing

Daniel Hornburg et al. · Nature Metabolism · 2023

DOI 10.1038/s42255-023-00880-1

cohort · n=112Cited 230×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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