Postprandial extracellular vesicle lipidomes: links between dietary fat quality and cardiometabolic signalling

Dietary fat intake acutely induces a dynamic postprandial state characterized by transient elevations in triacylglycerol-rich lipoproteins, circulating non-esterified fatty acids, and lipid mediators, superimposed on habitual diet and individual metabolic status. Within this context, extracellular vesicles (EVs) have emerged as lipid-bilayer nanoparticles whose lipid composition may reflect cellular lipid handling and contribute to interorgan signaling. This narrative review integrates mechanistic evidence, omics studies, and human feeding trials to examine how dietary lipids and postprandial lipemia may influence EV biogenesis and remodel EV lipid composition and molecular cargo across the fasted-fed cycle, while clearly distinguishing EV lipidomes from broader plasma and lipoprotein lipidomic changes. We highlight available evidence on the differential effects of fatty acid classes and dietary patterns on EV lipid signatures, pro-inflammatory and pro-thrombotic potential, and putative roles in endothelial dysfunction, adipose-liver-muscle crosstalk, immunometabolism, and insulin resistance. We also discuss methodological challenges in distinguishing EVs from lipoproteins in postprandial plasma, together with opportunities to use rigorously characterized postprandial EV signatures as integrative biomarkers of cardiometabolic risk and readouts of nutrition-based interventions. Overall, current evidence supports moving beyond a fasting, lipoprotein-centric perspective toward a postprandial framework in which EV lipidomes are investigated as complementary mediators and biomarkers of cardiometabolic disease.