Do ‘Pro-Resolving’ Fatty Acid Molecules Really Exist in the Body? A Critical Look at the Evidence

This review takes a hard look at specialized pro-resolving mediators (SPMs) — small molecules made from fatty acids that have been widely discussed as helping the body wind down inflammation. The authors, who are lipid biochemists, re-examined the enzyme chemistry and receptor signaling that supposedly produce and detect these molecules.

They report that many of the enzymes involved don’t actually behave the way the SPM theory requires, and that the receptors proposed to respond to SPMs don’t show clear, specific signaling in the way that’s been claimed. They also scrutinized the lab methods (mainly mass spectrometry and ELISA tests) used in published studies to detect SPMs in blood, tissue, and other samples.

Their conclusion is that a lot of the reported detections don’t hold up to rigorous scientific standards — some methods aren’t sensitive or selective enough, and some ‘detected’ compounds may simply be lab artifacts formed when fatty acids break down (oxidize) outside the body, rather than true biological signals.