Abstract
BackgroundCholine is an essential nutrient and betaine is an osmolyte and methyl donor. Both are important to maintain health including adequate lipid metabolism. Supplementation of dietary choline and betaine increase muscle mass and reduce body fat in animals. However, little data is available regarding the role of dietary choline and betaine on body composition in humans.ObjectiveTo investigate the association between dietary choline and betaine intakes with body composition in a large population based cross-sectional study.DesignA total of 3214 subjects from the CODING (Complex Disease in Newfoundland population: Environment and Genetics) study were assessed. Dietary choline and betaine intakes were computed from the Willett Food Frequency questionnaire. Body composition was measured using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry following a 12-hour fast. Major confounding factors including age, sex, total calorie intake and physical activity level were controlled in all analyses.ResultSignificantly inverse correlations were found between dietary choline and betaine intakes, with all obesity measurements: total percent body fat (%BF), percent trunk fat (%TF), percent android fat (%AF), percent gynoid fat (%GF) and anthropometrics: weight, body mass index, waist circumference, waist-to-hip ratio in both women and men (r range from -0.13 to -0.47 for choline and -0.09 to -0.26 for betaine, p<0.001 for all). Dietary choline intake had stronger association than betaine. Moreover, obese subjects had the lowest dietary choline and betaine intakes, with overweight subjects in the middle, and normal weight subjects consumed the highest dietary choline and betaine (p<0.001). Vice versa, when subjects were ranked according to dietary choline and betaine intakes, subjects with the highest intake of both had the lowest %TF, %AF, %GF, %BF and highest %LM among the groups in both sexes.ConclusionOur findings indicate that high dietary choline and betaine intakes are significantly associated with favorable body composition in humans.
Highlights
Obesity is widely recognized as a chronic disease associated with many serious health problems including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension and at least a dozen of cancers [1, 2]
Our findings indicate that high dietary choline and betaine intakes are significantly associated with favorable body composition in humans
body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), Waist-tohip ratio (WHR), %LM and physical activity were significantly higher in males than females (p
Summary
Obesity is widely recognized as a chronic disease associated with many serious health problems including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension and at least a dozen of cancers [1, 2]. Choline and betaine are quaternary ammonium compounds, which are obtained from diet or by de novo synthesis in tissues. Both of them are found in a wide variety of foods. Choline is recognized as an essential nutrient and plays an important role in neurotransmitter synthesis, cell-membrane signaling, lipid transport in lipoproteins and methyl-group metabolism by serving as a precursor for acetylcholine, sphingolipid and phospholipids head groups, and the methyl donor betaine [14, 15]. Choline is an essential nutrient and betaine is an osmolyte and methyl donor. Both are important to maintain health including adequate lipid metabolism. Little data is available regarding the role of dietary choline and betaine on body composition in humans.
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