Foreword

The complexity of lipids is one of the most exciting areas in human nutrition. Most
neophytes have actually a simplistic view, reducing them to their energy intake,
enhanced by prevention messages that have demonized them for a long time: fats
make you fat; they “give” cholesterol (even it is ugly and vulgar!), flee! Ideas die
hard, and when they are wrong, they can last for several generations. This shows the
importance of careful scientific discourse, any simplification or overgeneralization
is harmful, as the data changes. Today we know, for example, that the saturated fatty
acids are not a homogenous group, as are the polyunsaturated fatty acids. We know

that the saturated fatty acids are nonessential but useful and that the polyunsatu-
rated fatty acids exert considerable structural and functional features. We know that

omega-3 fatty acids are molecules essential for brain and retina functions very early
in life. No fats, no life