In FY 1992, the Office of Research on Women's Health provided supplemental funds to enlarge the study and to perform gender analyses. The supplemental funds were used to determine whether fatty acid distributions, and their relationships to cardiovascular risk factors differed between Nigerian women and United States Black women; United States Black women and United States white women; and Nigerian women and Nigerian men. Forty men and forty women, ages 18 to 30, were chosen randomly from the Nigerian civil servant population. Subjects with hypertension, those using oral contraceptives, or any medication affecting the sympathetic nervous system, were excluded. The Nigerian subjects were compared with 40 Black and 40 white healthy female volunteers at the University of Pittsburgh.