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Nature Medicine 15, 618–619 (1 June 2009) | doi:10.1038/nm0609-618

Expansion and contraction: the mighty, mighty fatty acid

Jorge Plutzky

Bedside to Bench Long before recorded history, fatty acids must have been hard for any organism bent on survival to ignore. Fatty acid combustion yields more energy than almost any other resource—9 kcal per g, more than double the yield from glucose.