Monounsaturated Fatty Acid Levels May Not Affect Cardiovascular Events: Results From a Mendelian Randomization Analysis.

Mohsen Mazidi,Maciej Banach,Niki Katsiki,Niloofar Shekoohi

doi:10.3389/fnut.2020.00123

Abstract

Background/Aim: Several observational studies evaluated the links between serum monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs) and cardiovascular events with controversial results. In the present study, Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis was applied to obtain unconfounded estimates of the causal associations of genetically determined serum MUFAs with coronary heart disease (CHD), myocardial infarction (MI), cardioembolic stroke (CS), and ischemic stroke (IS).Methods: Four MUFAs were studied (i.e., 10-heptadecenoate, myristoleic, oleic, and palmitoleic acid). Data from the largest genome-wide association studies on MUFAs, CHD, MI, and stroke were analyzed. Inverse variance weighted method (IVW), weighted median (WM)-based method, MR-Egger, as well as MR-pleiotropy residual sum and outlier were applied. To rule out the impact of single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), the leave-one-out method was also performed.Results: Genetically higher-serum 10-heptadecenoate levels did not affect the risk of CHD (IVW = Beta: −0.304, p = 0.185), MI (IVW = Beta: −0.505, p = 0.066), CS (IVW = Beta: −0.056, p = 0.945), and IS (IVW = Beta: −0.121, p = 0.767). Similarly, no significant associations were observed for myristoleic acid (CHD: IVW = Beta: 0.008; MI: IVW = Beta: 0.041; CS: IVW = Beta: 0.881; IS: IVW = Beta: 0.162), oleic acid (CHD: IVW = Beta: −0.2417; MI: IVW = Beta: −0.119; CS: IVW = Beta: 1.059; IS: IVW = Beta: 0.008491), and palmitoleic acid (CHD: IVW = Beta: −0.06957; MI: IVW = Beta: −0.01255; CS: IVW = Beta: 1.042; IS: IVW = Beta: −0.1862). A low likelihood of heterogeneity and pleiotropy was reported, and the observed associations were not driven by single SNPs.Conclusions: In the present MR analysis, serum MUFA levels were not associated with the risk of CHD, MI, CS, and IS. Further research, evaluating more MUFAs, is required to elucidate the links between MUFAs and CVD to contribute to health policy decisions in reducing CVD risk.

Highlights

Monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs) are a subgroup of fatty acids containing a single double bond, with two forms of configuration: cis and trans [1]
Cardiovascular (CV) health may be affected by MUFAs through effects on various markers associated with coronary heart disease (CHD) [8], including serum lipid and lipoprotein profile [9], vascular function markers [10], and postprandial vascular function [11]
If a single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) was unavailable for the outcome genome-wide association studies (GWAS) summary statistics, we identified proxy SNPs with a minimum linkage disequilibrium (LD) r2 = 0.8

Summary

Introduction

Monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs) are a subgroup of fatty acids containing a single double bond, with two forms of configuration: cis and trans [1]. It is widely known that fatty acid metabolism and composition can be altered during diseases, resulting in beneficial [4, 5] or adverse events [6, 7]. In this context, cardiovascular (CV) health may be affected by MUFAs through effects on various markers associated with CHD [8], including serum lipid and lipoprotein profile [9], vascular function markers [10], and postprandial vascular function [11]. Circulating palmitoleate levels positively correlated with insulin sensitivity [14]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion