Many factors are involved in the development of the insulin resistance syndrome, such as visceral obesity and the type of dietary fat. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between fatty acid content of triglyceride (TG), visceral adipose tissue (AT) accumulation, and metabolic components of the insulin resistance syndrome in a group of 97 Caucasian men with a mean age of 45.1 +/- 7.2 years (29 to 63 years). To reach these objectives, Spearman correlations, group comparisons, and stepwise multiple regression analyses were performed. The proportion of palmitic acid (16:0) in the TG fraction was positively associated with plasma fasting insulin (r =.25, P =.03), diastolic (r =.45, P <.001), and systolic (r =.29, P =.003) blood pressure. On the other hand, the proportion of alpha-linolenic acid (18:3n-3) was associated negatively with apolipoprotein (apo) B (r = -.29, P =.005) and positively with low-density lipoprotein (LDL) diameter (r =.29, P =.007), while the proportion of gamma-linolenic acid (18:3n-6) was associated negatively with plasma TG (r = -.33, P =.003), diastolic (r = -.29, P =.01), and systolic (r = -.35, P =.002) blood pressure and plasma fasting insulin (r = -.37, P =.0005) and positively with high-density lipoprotein (HDL)(2)-cholesterol (r =.27, P =.01) and LDL diameter (r =.25, P =.02). Stepwise multiple regression analyses were conducted to determine the contribution of visceral AT, body fat mass, and the fatty acid content of TG to the variance of metabolic variables studied. It was found that visceral AT contributed significantly to the variance in plasma TG (R(2) = 20.7%, P <.0001), apo B (R(2) = 9.0%, P =.007), HDL(2)-cholesterol (R(2) = 17.9%, P <.0001), LDL diameter (R(2) = 4.9%, P =.02), and area under the glucose curve (AUC-glucose) (R(2) = 8.2%, P =.006). On the other hand, body fat mass contributed significantly to the variance in fasting insulin (R(2) = 19.7%, P <.0001) and diastolic (R(2) = 6.8%, P =.007) and systolic (R(2) = 10.5%, P =.01) blood pressure. At least one fatty acid made a significant contribution to the variance of each metabolic variable studied. In fact, the proportion of 18:3n-6 contributed significantly to the variance in both TG (R(2) = 8.9%, P = 0.007) and HDL(2)-cholesterol (R(2) = 6.0%, P =.01). Moreover, 18:3n-3 contributed to the variance of apo B (R(2) = 7.0%, P =.02), while 18:3n-6 made the largest contribution to the variance of LDL diameter (R(2) = 7.6%, P =.02). Finally, 16:0 significantly contributed to the variance of AUC-glucose (R(2) = 11.4%, P =.0003), diastolic (R(2) = 25.2%, P <.0001), and systolic (R(2) = 6.8%, P =.002) blood pressure. In summary, results of this study suggest that the fatty acid content of TG is associated with many metabolic variables of the insulin resistance syndrome independently of body fat mass or visceral AT accumulation.