Abstract
There have been increases in the incidence of obesity in Lebanon over the past few decades. Fatty acid intake and metabolism have been postulated to influence obesity, but few epidemiological studies have been conducted. The aim of this study was to investigate the correlation between serum fatty acid levels and indicators of obesity in a cross-sectional study nested within a cohort of 501 Lebanese adults residing in Greater Beirut. A total of 395 available serum samples (129 men, 266 women) were profiled for phospholipid fatty acid composition. Spearman correlation coefficients adjusted for relevant confounders and corrected for multiple testing were calculated between serum fatty acids, desaturation indices, and indicators of adiposity (body mass index (BMI) and waist). BMI was significantly positively correlated with saturated fatty acids in men (r = 0.40, p < 0.0001, q < 0.0001) and women (r = 0.33, p < 0.0001, q < 0.0001). BMI was significantly positively correlated with monounsaturated fatty acid palmitoleic acid in women (r = 0.15, p = 0.01, q = 0.03). This study suggests that high blood levels of some saturated fatty acids and the monounsaturated fatty acid palmitoleic acid, likely derived from both dietary intakes of saturated fatty acids and endogenous lipogenesis, may have been associated with adiposity in the Lebanese population. The causality of these associations needs to be explored in experimental settings.
Highlights
The global prevalence of overweight adults in the world population has markedly increased from24.6% in 1980 to 39% in 2016 [1,2]
When we distinguished individual TFA isomers, we found differential correlations with BMI according to gender, with elaidic acid (r = −0.14, p = 0.02, q = 0.05), and trans linoleic acid (r = −0.15, p = 0.01, q = 0.03) showing significant inverse correlations in women, while trans isomers of α-linolenic acid showed a positive trend in men (r = 0.22, p = 0.01, q = 0.10)
53.9 years in European Prospective Investigation on Cancer (EPIC)), mean BMI at recruitment (29.6 in the Lebanese study vs. 25.5 in the EPIC study) or date at blood collection (2014 in the Lebanese cohort vs. 1992–1998 for the EPIC study), we previously showed that geographic region appeared to be the strongest determinant factor explaining variability in blood levels of fatty acids [22]
Summary
The global prevalence of overweight adults in the world population has markedly increased from24.6% in 1980 to 39% in 2016 [1,2]. In the eastern Mediterranean region, obesity rates in the adult population have reached high levels, exceeding at times those reported from developed countries such as the USA and Europe [4,5], with roughly one fifth of the adults in the region considered as obese [6]. In Lebanon, available data suggests that the prevalence of obesity increased significantly between the years 1997 and 2009 among adults aged 20 years and above (17.4% in year 1997 versus 28.2% in year 2009) [5]
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