Abstract
The association between circulating saturated fatty acids (SFAs) and incident type 2 diabetes (T2D) is reported in Western populations with inconsistent results, while evidence from Asian populations is scarce. We aimed to examine the associations between erythrocyte SFAs and incident T2D in a Chinese population. Between 2008 and 2013, a total of 2683 participants, aged 40–75 years, free of diabetes were included in the present analyses. Incident T2D cases were ascertained during follow-up visits. Gas chromatography was used to measure erythrocyte fatty acids at baseline. The Cox proportional hazards model was used to estimate the hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). During 13,508 person years of follow-up, 216 T2D cases were identified. Compared with the first quartile, multivariable-adjusted HRs (95% CIs) of the fourth quartile were 1.20 (0.82–1.76; p = 0.242) for myristic acid (14-carbon tail, zero double bonds; 14:0), 0.69 (0.48–0.99; p = 0.080) for palmitic acid (16:0), 1.49 (1.02–2.19; p = 0.047) for stearic acid (18:0), 1.46 (1.00–2.12; p = 0.035) for arachidic acid (20:0), 1.48 (0.99–2.22; p = 0.061) for behenic acid (22:0), and 1.08 (0.74–1.56; p = 0.913) for lignoceric acid (24:0). Our findings indicate that individual erythrocyte SFAs are associated with T2D in different directions, with 18:0 and 20:0 SFAs positively associated with the risk, whereas no convincing inverse association for 16:0 SFAs.
Highlights
Diabetes was a global health problem in the past decade, with an estimated 451 million adults with the disease in 2017 globally [1]
We examined the interaction of erythrocyte SFAs with several pre-defined variables: age, sex, and body mass index (BMI), by including interaction terms in the above final model, and we presented the stratified analyses if a significant interaction (p < 0.05) was found
Future cases had higher baseline BMI, ratio of waist to hip circumference, serum fasting glucose, and TG levels, and lower household income, dairy intake, and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) levels, and were more likely to have a family history of diabetes compared with non-cases
Summary
Diabetes was a global health problem in the past decade, with an estimated 451 million adults with the disease in 2017 globally [1]. The role of dietary saturated fatty acids (SFAs) in the prevention of T2D is still not clear and under debate [2,3]. Circulating SFAs reflect both dietary intake and endogenous synthesis [4], and investigation of their associations with. T2D may provide new insight into the role of SFAs in diabetes etiology. There is an ongoing interest in the associations of circulating SFAs with incident T2D, inconclusive results are reported [5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14] (Table S1). Results from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC)-InterAct study suggested that plasma phospholipid myristic acid (14-carbon tail, zero double bonds; 14:0), palmitic acid (16:0), and stearic acid (18:0) were positively associated with incident T2D [5], which was consistent with several other prospective cohort studies [6,7,8]
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