No neicosanoid Mediators Although it is clear that dietary fatty acids exert powerful effects on eicosanoids. which in turn profoundly modify some aspects of the immune response, altemate mechanisms by which dietary fat can alter immune responses have been proposed. These include changes in membrane microviscosity and dependent events, as well as the direct activation of protein kinase C (PKC) by arachidonic acid. The role of PKC is modulated by diacylglycerols (DAGs), whose affinity for PKC is altered by changes in the fatty acid moieties on the DAGs. other potential mechanisms that have been implicated are activation of GTP-binding proteins by fatty acids and changes in phospholipase activity in the cell membrane. Finally, increased oxidation is suspected as one of the mediators of w3 fatty acid effects on immune cells; an increase in dietary vitamin E that restored the in vitro responses of T cells from subjects fed fish oil was interpreted as supporting the possibility of such mediating activity l4]. Also, carotenoids exhibit both antioxidant and immunomodulatory roles that may be related. Feeding of carotenoids raises the number of circulating lymphocyte