Palmitic acid

Palmitic acid (hexadecanoic acid, 16:0, C16H32O2) is a long-chain saturated fatty acid with 16 carbons and no double bonds. It is the most common saturated fat in food and in the body. One review puts it at 20% to 30% of all the fatty acids in human cell membranes and body fat.

The name points to palm oil, where it is about 43% to 44% of the fat. But it is just as much a part of milk fat and meat fat. Its shorter neighbors on the chain are lauric acid (12:0) and myristic acid (14:0), and its longer neighbor is stearic acid (18:0).

Here is what most readers do not know: your body makes palmitic acid itself. When the liver turns extra carbohydrate, alcohol or protein into fat, palmitic acid is the end product. The same review says changes in intake barely move the level in tissues, because the body’s own production balances the supply from food.

So a blood test for palmitic acid shows more than what you ate. It also has real jobs. Cells attach it to proteins, and the main fat in lung surfactant (the film that keeps the lungs open) carries two palmitic acid chains.

What the research says about eating more of it is narrower. In feeding trials, palmitic acid raises LDL (“bad”) cholesterol compared with carbohydrate. It raises HDL (“good”) cholesterol too, so the ratio of total to HDL cholesterol hardly moves.

WHO’s 2023 guideline asks adults and children to limit saturated fat to 10% of energy. It says the evidence on single saturated fats is not enough for a limit on palmitic acid alone. In our USDA ranking, ground lamb leads per serving with 5.8 g in 4 oz.

Health benefits of palmitic acid

• ★★★Little change in total to HDL cholesterol ratioAcross 60 trials, palmitic acid in the diet barely changed the ratio of total to HDL cholesterol. That ratio is one marker, and LDL is another.
• ★★Palm oil raised LDL versus low-saturated-fat oilsPalm oil raised “bad” LDL cholesterol by 0.24 mmol/L over low-saturated-fat vegetable oils in trials of at least 2 weeks. Palm oil is a mix of fats, so this is not palmitic acid alone.
• ★★Fewer heart events with less saturated fatCutting saturated fat for at least 2 years lowered combined cardiovascular events by 17% across 15 trials. This tested saturated fat as a class, not palmitic acid.
• ★★More liver fat from overeating palm oilIn 61 people with overweight or obesity, extra palm oil muffins for 8 weeks raised liver fat by 50%, and sunflower oil muffins did not. Weight gain was similar in both groups.
• ★★More weight gain with sn-2 palmitate infant formulaFormula with palmitic acid in the middle spot of the fat molecule (sn-2) gave infants 0.81 g a day more weight gain across 16 trials. In one trial bone mineral content was 128.1 g against 122.7 g.

Foods high in palmitic acid

Palmitic acid is in almost every food that has fat. In our USDA ranking per serving, ground lamb leads with 5.8 g in 4 oz (113 g). Ground beef follows at 4.84 g, then Brazil nuts at 2.73 g in 1 oz (28 g).

A chicken drumstick with skin and a mackerel fillet come next. Plant foods are in the top ten too: avocado, macadamia nuts and soybeans. The ranking shows their amounts.

Per 100 g the order changes and nuts and seeds take the top. Brazil nuts lead with 9.63 g, then macadamia nuts with 6.04 g and pumpkin seeds with 5.36 g. Pistachio nuts, peanuts and ground lamb follow.

Oils and cooking fats do not appear in our top ten, but they matter. Palm oil was 43% palmitic acid in one trial and 44% of its fat in a review. FAO and WHO list palmitic acid as the main saturated fat in milk fat and in the muscle and fat of pigs, sheep and cattle. These are mixtures: WHO notes that saturated fats found naturally in foods are generally mixtures, so palmitic acid never arrives alone.

The top-ten list is not a list of foods to avoid. A 2020 review in a cardiology journal argued that you cannot predict a food’s health effects from one nutrient group without the whole diet. In a 6-week trial of 49 people, hard cheese gave lower LDL cholesterol than butter of equal fat content.

WHO’s guideline does not rule out any particular food. It says foods high in saturated fat should be eaten sparingly to stay within the recommended level.

Our arithmetic for scale: across the 134 trial diets in WHO’s 2016 analysis, palmitic acid averaged 5.9% of energy. At about 9 kcal per gram of fat, that is roughly 13 g in a 2,000 kcal diet. So the 5.8 g in 4 oz of ground lamb would be a large share of it. The trial average is not a survey of what people eat.

How palmitic acid works

Most of what is known about how palmitic acid works comes from human feeding trials and tracer studies, with some cell and mouse work. Six ideas cover it. The body makes it, sugar and alcohol speed that up, and blood levels do not simply mirror intake. It raises LDL cholesterol, cells use it for membranes and signals, and in a dish too much is toxic.

Here is each idea, and what has been seen in people.

Your body makes it from sugar, alcohol and protein

Fatty acid synthesis, called de novo lipogenesis, is the main pathway that builds fatty acids from carbohydrates, protein or alcohol. According to FAO and WHO, excess carbohydrate is broken down to acetyl units, and palmitic acid is the end product. Once released, it can be lengthened to stearic acid. A review adds that it can be turned into palmitoleic acid, or lengthened to stearic acid and then turned into oleic acid.

The new fatty acids are bound to glycerol as triglyceride, which the liver exports in VLDL (a blood fat carrier) and fat tissue stores. A labeled-water study of 7 people with type 2 diabetes and 7 matched controls put palmitate at 71% of new fatty acids (44% to 84%). FAO and WHO cite a study that put this new fat making at about 20% of newly formed fat-tissue triglyceride in free-living healthy people.

Sugar and alcohol speed it up

How much of the fat in your blood is newly made depends on what you eat. In lean adults on solid-food, high-sugar diets, newly made fatty acids peaked at 43% of VLDL triglyceride on a 10% fat diet. They peaked at 12% on a 30% fat diet, and blood triglycerides rose in line with the amount made. Obese volunteers responded the same way (37% against 6%).

In 6 healthy people, a mix of glucose and fructose gave about twice the absolute new fat making of glucose alone. Blood triglycerides after a later lunch were 11% to 29% higher. Over 10 weeks in overweight adults, fructose-sweetened drinks supplying 25% of energy raised new fat making, and glucose-sweetened drinks did not. In 38 overweight adults overfed simple sugars for 3 weeks, it rose 98%.

Alcohol also feeds it: after 24 g, new fat’s share of VLDL palmitate rose from 2% to 30%. But the absolute rate, 0.8 g over 6 hours, was under 5% of the alcohol dose. A review notes that in healthy people on a regular diet, new fat making adds a modest share and fasting suppresses it. In obesity, insulin resistance and fatty liver disease it is markedly induced.

Blood palmitic acid reflects more than what you eat

Researchers use fatty acids in blood and tissue as markers of diet. A review of the method lists the body’s own synthesis among the factors that shape the result. In a controlled trial in 16 adults with metabolic syndrome, saturated fat went from 46 to 84 g a day, then down to 32 g.

Yet the share of total saturated fatty acids in blood fats did not change significantly, while palmitoleic acid rose with carbohydrate. The review by Carta and colleagues reports the same pattern. Changes in palmitic acid intake do not move tissue levels much, because production balances the supply.

Cohorts still link higher blood palmitic acid to type 2 diabetes. In EPIC-InterAct, each standard deviation higher went with 1.26 times the risk. In 17 pooled cohorts, the top fifth had 1.53 times the risk of the bottom.

WHO’s 2023 guideline reviewed such tissue studies and found palmitic acid strongly associated with a higher risk of type 2 diabetes. But it did not use them for its recommendations, because the body’s own synthesis of saturated fatty acids cannot be estimated consistently. A high level is a flag, not a verdict, and we found no official cut-off for a blood palmitic acid level.

It raises LDL cholesterol compared with carbohydrate

WHO’s 2016 regression analysis, done for its 2023 guideline, pooled 52 strictly controlled feeding trials (134 diets). It estimated what happens when 1% of daily energy from carbohydrate is replaced by one fatty acid. In those diets palmitic acid averaged 5.9% of energy, with a range of 1.0% to 20.8%.

For palmitic acid, LDL cholesterol rose 0.036 mmol/L (a unit for blood levels) per 1% of energy. HDL cholesterol rose 0.010, and triglycerides fell 0.011. The ratio of total to HDL cholesterol did not change significantly, but the ratio of LDL to HDL rose 0.013. Stearic acid had no significant effect on any blood fat.

By our arithmetic, if the straight-line estimate holds, swapping 5% of energy from carbohydrate to palmitic acid would raise LDL by about 0.18 mmol/L. WHO’s guideline ranks the size of the LDL effect as myristic acid, then palmitic acid, then lauric acid. It notes that lauric and myristic acid intakes were low in the trials (a mean of 1.2% of energy).

A review of the mechanisms says saturated fatty acids raise LDL by increasing the formation of LDL in the blood and slowing its turnover. Unsaturated fatty acids, by contrast, raise the number of LDL receptors in the liver. Much of that work was done in animals.

Cells use it for membranes, protein tags and lung surfactant

Palmitic acid makes up 20% to 30% of the fatty acids in membrane phospholipids and in body fat. The review by Carta and colleagues estimates that a 70 kg man holds about 3.5 kg of it. In mammals, cells attach it to several hundred proteins in a reversible step called S-palmitoylation, which helps proteins stick to membranes.

The main surface-active fat in lung surfactant carries two palmitic acid chains and is about 60% of the surfactant’s lipids. The body also makes palmitoylethanolamide from it.

The authors argue that harm comes when the balance between palmitic acid and unsaturated fats is lost, as with a surplus of energy and sugar. That is a hypothesis from a review, not a trial result.

In a dish, too much is toxic

In cultured cells, excess palmitic acid was poorly turned into triglyceride and triggered cell death. Oleic acid was tolerated and rescued the cells. In mice, a short palm-oil-rich diet, or briefly exposing tumor cells to palmitic acid, left oral cancer and melanoma cells more able to spread. That was not seen with oleic or linoleic acid.

Neither result has been tested in people in the studies on this page.

What has been seen in people

The human trials agree on direction. Palm oil and palmitic acid-rich fats raised LDL cholesterol compared with oleic acid-rich or polyunsaturated fats. HDL cholesterol rose too, which is why the total to HDL ratio moved little in the 60-trial meta-analysis.

Against stearic acid the results are mixed. LDL cholesterol was 0.14 mmol/L lower on stearic acid in a 34-person trial. A 51-person trial of interesterified fats found no difference in the total to HDL ratio.

Overeating palm oil raised liver fat by 50% in 61 people, and the effect reversed with calorie restriction. No trial has tested palmitic acid alone on heart attacks, strokes or deaths, and WHO says it found none for any single saturated fatty acid.

How much palmitic acid do you need?

No daily amount of palmitic acid is set. The FDA has set no Daily Value for it and the EU no EU Reference Intake. Health bodies limit saturated fat as a group, not palmitic acid alone.

The body makes palmitic acid, and the essential fatty acids are different ones. FAO and WHO note that mammals cannot make linoleic acid or alpha-linolenic acid. Palmitic acid, by contrast, is the end product of the body’s own fatty acid synthesis. We found no deficiency disease for palmitic acid.

The official values below are for saturated fat as a whole. WHO’s 2023 guideline says the evidence on individual saturated fats is not enough for recommendations on palmitic acid or any other single one.

Source	Group	Value	Notes	Source
WHO guideline, 2023	Adults and children	Reduce saturated fat to 10% of total energy (strong recommendation); further reduction to less than 10% suggested (conditional)	Replace it with polyunsaturated fat (strong), plant monounsaturated fat or fiber-rich carbohydrates (conditional). No recommendation for single saturated fats.	1
EFSA, 2010	Not stated in the abstract	Saturated fatty acid intake should be as low as possible	The opinion’s abstract gives no number for saturated fat.	2
Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2020-2025	Ages 2 and older	Less than 10 percent of calories per day from saturated fat	Part of the guidelines’ limits on added sugars, saturated fat and sodium.	3
FDA Daily Value	Nutrition Facts labels	Saturated fat: 20 g	A label value for the whole class of saturated fats.	4

Our arithmetic for a 2,000 kcal diet: 10% of energy is 200 kcal, about 22 g of saturated fat at 9 kcal per gram. That is the limit for all saturated fats together, and palmitic acid is only part of it. One 4 oz serving of ground lamb holds 5.8 g of palmitic acid in our ranking.

Forms of palmitic acid: absorption and effects

Palmitic acid reaches you in palm oil, milk fat or meat fat, as fat your own liver makes, and as a few engineered fats. The pure acid is a solid used in soap and cosmetics. We found no randomized trial of a palmitic acid supplement for a health benefit in people.

What differs between sources is the company the acid keeps, and where it sits on the glycerol backbone of the triglyceride. In human milk, palmitic acid sits mainly at the middle (sn-2) position, while palm oil carries most of it at the outer positions. The honest bottom line is that the trials test whole fats, and no trial separates the acid from the fat around it.

Popular claims need care. We found no trial that tested palmitic acid as a skin treatment, whether eaten or applied. It is an ingredient in cosmetics, not a proven skin remedy. Palmitoylethanolamide, sold for pain, is a different compound, so its trials say nothing about eating palmitic acid.

Form	What it is	What studies show	Source
Palm oil and palm olein	Vegetable fat, 43% to 44% palmitic acid	Raised LDL cholesterol by 0.24 mmol/L compared with vegetable oils low in saturated fat, and gave 14% higher LDL cholesterol than soybean oil in 15 adults. In a 51-study review, most of the same markers were lower than on diets rich in myristic and lauric acids, and only favorable changes were seen against trans fat.	1, 2, 3, 4, 13
Dairy fat (butter, cheese)	Milk fat, where palmitic acid predominates among the saturated fats	In 49 people, hard cheese gave lower total and LDL cholesterol than butter of equal fat content over 6 weeks, and did not raise LDL cholesterol compared with the run-in diet.	5, 6
Meat fat and lard	Animal fat, where palmitic acid is the main saturated fat	Palmitic acid at the sn-2 position was 70.5 mol% in lard, against 9.2 mol% in palm olein. After a 50 g fat meal, blood triglyceride rose less after lard than after sunflower oil or palm olein in 50 adults.	5, 7
Made in the body	Palmitic acid from de novo lipogenesis	Palmitate was 71% of the fatty acids made in 14 people. Lipogenesis is suppressed by fasting and induced in obesity, insulin resistance and fatty liver disease.	13, 14
sn-2 palmitate infant formula	Formula fat blended so that more palmitic acid sits at the sn-2 position, as in human milk	Softer stools and higher bone mineral content than standard formula in trials, and similar to human milk. A 2019 European position paper found insufficient evidence to avoid palm oil in formula and called sn-2 palmitate non-essential.	5, 8, 9, 10
Interesterified palm fats	Palm fat whose fatty acids were rearranged, which can raise palmitic acid at sn-2	Lowered the post-meal triglyceride rise compared with palm olein in 50 adults. In 53 adults it did not change insulin secretion or glucose, and LDL cholesterol was 0.3 mmol/L lower on high-oleic sunflower oil than on either palm fat. A review says long-term effects are less well understood.	7, 11, 12
Palmitoylethanolamide (PEA)	A different compound: an amide the body makes from palmitic acid	A meta-analysis of 10 studies found it reduced pain more than inactive controls, but the trials were small and varied, with poor quality and poor side effect reporting. It is not evidence about eating palmitic acid.	13, 15
Pure palmitic acid	A white solid used in soap, cosmetics and as a food additive	Listed as an emulsifier and emollient in cosmetics. The Cosmetic Ingredient Review panel judged it safe in cosmetics when formulated to be non-irritating, and it was a mild irritant on human skin in one test (75 mg over 3 days). We found no supplement trials.	16

Here are the form-specific and head-to-head studies, strongest evidence first, 4 in all.

Is palmitic acid safe? Limits and who should watch it

At the amounts in ordinary food, palmitic acid is not a poison. It is a normal part of the body, and we found no upper limit set for it alone. JECFA, the FAO and WHO expert committee on food additives, found no safety concern at current intake levels for its use as a flavoring.

What is limited is saturated fat as a group: 10% of energy, by WHO and by the US guidelines. The reason is its effect on LDL cholesterol and cardiovascular risk. Palmitic acid is a major part of that class, but no authority sets a separate number for it.

• People with high LDL cholesterol or heart disease. In the Cochrane review, 56 people without cardiovascular disease had to cut saturated fat for about four years to avoid one cardiovascular event. For people who already had it, the number was 53. WHO’s 10% is a population guideline, so ask a doctor or dietitian about your own target, especially if you take cholesterol medicine.
• Overeating with palm oil or saturated fat. In overfeeding trials of 8 weeks and 3 weeks, extra saturated fat (palm oil in the longer one) raised liver fat by 50% and 55%. The changes reversed with calorie restriction in the longer trial. These were extra calories on top of usual food, not a usual diet.
• Infant formula. A 2019 European position paper found insufficient evidence to avoid palm oil as a fat source in infant formula for health reasons. It found no study of later disease markers. Ask a pediatrician about formula choices.
• Skin and eyes. PubChem reports that palmitic acid was a mild irritant on human skin in a 3-day test of 75 mg in total. It cites the Cosmetic Ingredient Review panel’s finding that it is safe in cosmetics when formulated to be non-irritating and non-sensitizing. That says nothing about food.

How to eat palmitic acid wisely

• Swap, rather than just cut. WHO recommends replacing saturated fat with polyunsaturated fat (strong), or with plant monounsaturated fat or fiber-rich carbohydrates (conditional). In US cohorts, swapping 1% of energy from palmitic acid for polyunsaturated fat went with 12% lower coronary heart disease risk (0.88 times).
• Mind sugar and alcohol too. The body makes palmitic acid from them. In lean adults, a very low-fat, high-sugar diet raised the peak share of new fat in VLDL to 43%, against 12% on 30% fat. Fructose-sweetened drinks supplying 25% of energy raised new fat making over 10 weeks.
• Think in foods, not single acids. WHO does not rule out any food but asks for foods high in saturated fat to be eaten sparingly. In a 6-week trial, hard cheese did not raise LDL compared with butter of equal fat. So the food matters as well as its fat.

History of palmitic acid

Palmitic acid was discovered by the saponification (the soap-making reaction) of palm oil. An 1842 memoir by the French chemist Edmond Frémy on the products of palm oil saponification is cited as the early record. That route, from palm oil, is still the main industrial route for making the acid, and PubChem lists palm oil as a starting material. FAO and WHO list the acid as present in most fats and oils.

What it does to cholesterol was worked out in feeding trials much later. In a 1992 study of 14 men, a palm oil diet gave a total cholesterol of 5.17 mmol/L and an LDL cholesterol of 3.93. That compared with 4.94 and 3.70 on a lauric-rich oil, and 4.44 and 3.31 on high-oleic sunflower oil.

In 2003, Mensink and colleagues pooled 60 controlled trials published from 1970 to 1998. WHO commissioned an update that added trials through 2013. In 2023 the guideline built on it set the 10% limit for saturated fat as a whole.

Frequently asked questions about palmitic acid

Is palmitic acid bad for you?

Not in the way a poison is, but more of it raises some risk markers. In feeding trials it raised LDL cholesterol by 0.036 mmol/L for each 1% of energy swapped in for carbohydrate. It raised HDL cholesterol too, so the ratio of total to HDL cholesterol barely moved in a 60-trial meta-analysis.

WHO asks for saturated fat as a whole to stay at 10% of energy. It says the evidence on single saturated fats is not enough for a limit on palmitic acid alone. The body also makes it and needs it for membranes.

What foods are high in palmitic acid?

In our USDA ranking per serving, ground lamb leads with 5.8 g in 4 oz. Ground beef follows with 4.84 g, then Brazil nuts with 2.73 g in 1 oz. Per 100 g, Brazil nuts lead with 9.63 g.

Palm oil is 43% to 44% palmitic acid, and milk fat and meat fat carry it as their main saturated fat. Foods carry mixes of fats, so palmitic acid never comes alone.

Is palm oil unhealthy because of its palmitic acid?

Palm oil raised LDL cholesterol by 0.24 mmol/L compared with vegetable oils low in saturated fat in a meta-analysis of trials. Overeating palm oil muffins raised liver fat by 50% in 61 people. But palm oil is a mix of fats.

In a 51-study review, most of the same markers were lower on palm oil than on diets rich in myristic and lauric acids. Against trans fat, palm oil brought only favorable changes. A 2019 European position paper found insufficient evidence to avoid palm oil in infant formula.

Does sugar turn into palmitic acid?

Partly. The liver turns extra carbohydrate into fat, and palmitic acid is the end product of that pathway. Palmitate was 71% of the fatty acids made in 14 people.

In lean adults on high-sugar diets, new fatty acids peaked at 43% of VLDL triglyceride on a 10% fat diet, against 12% on 30% fat. Fructose-sweetened drinks raised new fat making over 10 weeks. And 24 g of alcohol raised new fat’s share of VLDL palmitate from 2% to 30%, though that was under 5% of the alcohol dose.

Palmitic acid vs stearic acid vs lauric acid: which raises LDL most?

In WHO’s 2016 analysis, for each 1% of energy swapped in for carbohydrate, myristic acid raised LDL cholesterol by 0.044 mmol/L. Palmitic acid raised it by 0.036 and lauric acid by 0.017, while stearic acid had no significant effect. Lauric acid raised HDL cholesterol more, so it lowered the total to HDL ratio.

In a 34-person trial, stearic acid lowered LDL cholesterol by 0.14 mmol/L compared with palmitic acid. But a 51-person trial of interesterified fats found no difference in the total to HDL ratio.

Is palmitic acid good for skin?

We found no trial that tested palmitic acid for skin health, eaten or applied. PubChem lists it as an emulsifier and emollient (skin softener) in cosmetics. The Cosmetic Ingredient Review panel judged it safe in cosmetics when formulated to be non-irritating. In a human test it was a mild irritant at 75 mg in total over 3 days, and eating it has no known skin benefit.

What does a high blood palmitic acid level mean?

In EPIC-InterAct, each standard deviation higher plasma palmitic acid went with a 26% higher risk of type 2 diabetes. In 17 pooled cohorts, the top fifth had a 53% higher risk than the bottom. But the body makes palmitic acid, and in a 16-person trial blood saturated fats did not follow diet. We found no official cut-off, and the studies cannot say that eating it caused the risk.